These are not the best of times for the PDP. They are the worst of times for Africa’s largest party. The party lost the presidential election barely two weeks ago as of this writing. And suddenly, it is hemorrhaging.
Its own members have not permitted the party the traditional mourning period, a post mortem and soul searching for what hit it so hard. They are rubbing its nose in the effluvium of its defeat and loss of power at the centre; power it had held and exercised with imperial arrogance for 16 years. They are piling it on with defections as if the protective power of the umbrella has been taken away and it has become an old piece of cloth with unsightly tears.
The party is waging a devastating psychological war against itself. I think it is used to it. PDP has demonstrated an uncanny capacity for self-sabotage. It should qualify as a minor miracle that the party has survived its own internal contradictions and self-sabotage for this long. But, as the English say, every dog has its day. Or, in this case, the largest party in Africa is subject to the common laws of fortunes and misfortunes.
In 2003, PDP became the first party in the recorded history of party politics to de-register some of its members. The party decided it did not want some of its members in its fold any longer. Those rejected members were suspected to be the loyalists of the then Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, easily one of the most misunderstood major political figures in our country today. It was a preventive measure by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo to ensure that without his supporters in the party, Atiku’s rumoured ambition to throw him off the throne would blow in the wind. It came to pass.
PDP’s loss of the presidential election on March 28 confronts it with its biggest external challenge to its hegemony. I find it disturbing that the party leaders are unable to rally the troops and try to steady the course. Instead, here is what is happening. The Nation newspaper served us a banner headline on April 7: “Heavyweights desert PDP.” The paper reported on the heavyweights who defected from the party just before and immediately after the presidential election – the deputy governors of Kebbi, Gombe, Ondo, Niger and Jigawa states, a former attorney-general and minister of justice and former PDP governorship candidates. Most of these defectors have been with the party since inception in 1998. No big deal. How many of its founding fathers are still with the party today any way?
As you would imagine, there is a lot of rejoicing in the APC camp; and there is the gnashing of teeth in the PDP camp over these defections. All political parties welcome self-destruction of their rival parties. APC can afford to sit and watch PDP heavyweights emerge each day with bloody heads and bloody noses, staggering towards its camp for accommodation.
PDP, used to nonchalance, must come down from its high horse. It cannot pretend not to be worried. Its electoral misfortune is its biggest challenge to its survival and relevance as a political party since 1998. The way things are going, even if the party makes an impressive showing in the governorship and house of assembly elections tomorrow, it cannot guarantee that all its new or returning governors would remain in its fold. They too will jump ship and go where it is happening – APC – where, with apology to the late Adisa Akinloye, former national chairman of NPN, the cheeks will grow all robust and rosy.
The rosy cheek is the problem. We now call it stomach infrastructure, easily the most important infrastructure in the world. So, our politicians flock to wherever the prospects of rosy cheeks beckon. It is realpolitik a la Nigeria. The defections so early in the day reek of disturbing evidence that although we are on the threshold of the change we have been clamouring for, the fundamental weaknesses of our national political still threaten to hobble our movement. Our national politics has been characterised by toing and froing in search of greener pastures. In 1979, each of the five political parties controlled at least two states. By 1983, only two parties were standing – NPN and UPN. In 1999, ANPP had seven states and AD six. By 2003, ANPP had two states and AD, one state. Heavyweights in those parties ditched their parties and crossed the party line into NPN and PDP where it was all happening. The godfathers of PDP drank expensive champagnes in mindless celebration.
In effect, there is nothing particularly strange or unusual about the current defections from PDP to APC. They have a long history and are embedded in the character of our politicians. To be fair to them, where the political culture dictates that winners must take all, it is folly to remain aloof. I can tell you this: isolation in political wilderness means sunken and ragged cheeks and a stomach that growls without ceasing. We should expect more defections in the coming months as APC consolidates its power and begins to dispense patronage.
There is no sense of shame in the defections each man owes his stomach certain obvious obligations, as in feed it and feed it well. I wonder how the Americans, the British, the Ghanaians and other countries survive when their parties lose elections. One thing I have not seen is a flood of members of a defeated party flowing down to the headquarters of the victorious party. That makes a fundamental difference between their politics and ours.
The pursuit of immediate narrow personal interests is at the root of our democratic political underdevelopment. Democracy is a child of personal and group convictions as matters of principle. That is why people of like minds write the book for their political parties. Political opportunism is anathema to the high-minded politics of convictions and principles. Where convictions and principles are absent, as they are in our country, expect democracy to have a hollow ring. It takes the people no higher than the greed of individuals and their immediate interests clothed in faux political mink.
The emergence of APC from the ashes of at least four political parties was, in my view, the best thing to happen to our national politics. With it, we have two formidable parties and can make rational choices between them. Real choice had been missing since PDP bulldozed other political parties in 2003 and began the systematic erosion of their constitutional right of existence.
The two-party system has consistently recommended itself as the most viable option for us. The politicians of the First Republic recognised this. The three major parties, NPC, AG and NCNC, and their minor associates fused into NNA and UPGA. General Ibrahim Babangida recognised this and in his transition programme, decreed the two-party system with his SDP (“a little to the left”) and NRC (“a little to the right”). I continue to hold the view, humble as it may be, that Obasanjo did our political development a disservice with his relentless pursuit of the anachronistic one-party system.
The real danger is that the defections weaken the fabric of the two-party system. It narrows our political pluralism and might in the end sabotage the change for which Buhari is the crowned poster child at the moment. I hope the defections would be a trickle, not a flood, and that we are not about to exchange a PDP pack of cards for APC pack of cards with opportunistic strange bedfellows assuming and exercising rights that serve them well and the nation poorly.
Let me underline this: The demise of the PDP is not in our national interest although I would welcome its weakened state if only to wipe off the smirk of arrogance from its face. We should encourage the party to survive, even with one eye, one hand and one leg.
Last Line
I had hoped that after the presidential election, the newspapers would all chorus in their banner headlines: Rigging nko? E don Die.
It did not happen. Rigging is alive and well. Rivers and Akwa Ibom typified the resilience of rigging in the presidential election. Illegal thumb printing of ballot papers was in full bloom.
It was no small surprise to me that every political party listed on the ballot papers in alphabetical order managed to win some votes, even when no one knew their presidential candidates. Who wasted their votes on unknown quantities? Vote allocation in action. I call it the fairness doctrine of our elections.
Oh well, without the card reader, it could have been much worse. Professor Attahiru Jega has distanced the 2015 elections from previous elections. The small steps he took could become giant steps – if we stay the course of progressive change.
