The mutual recrimination in the PDP began to simmer soon after the party’s electoral debacle. It has now reached a dangerous level as assured mutual destruction. The atmosphere around the party is pure poison.
I can offer two possible explanations for what is happening to and in the party. One, as May crept up on us, taking our country to its new date with destiny, the grim reality of loss of power suddenly dawned on the president and his men. His current reactions show that his bitterness at his defeat was only thinly papered over with his telephone call to General Buhari. He has even lately questioned the general’s victory.
If Jonathan had the luxury of some of the defeated governorship candidates who conceded defeat but turned round to take their case to the election tribunals, Jonathan would have done so too. I imagine he would not give a damn what the world would say about him and his statesmanship hanging on one peg. As it is, on May 29, he and men and women would be transformed from men and women of power into men and women without power. Ah, well, they will still retain the power over poverty. And that is no mean power.
Two, and perhaps more importantly, the president and the leaders of the party are asking the wrong question. They are not asking the scientific question: What caused our defeat? They are asking the primitive question: Who caused our defeat? This is the sort of question that gave birth to and has kept babalowo and self-anointed pastors in lucrative business.
The first question digs deep into what went wrong, where it went wrong, how it went wrong and why it went wrong. It seeks to prevent possible failure in the future. The second question leads to scapegoating. Jonathan believes someone or a group of persons caused his defeat and the unprecedented electoral rout of his party. The president’s men blame members of the national working committee and have asked for their resignation. The members of the national working committee blame the presidential campaign organisation for their party’s monumental loss.
Olisa Metuh, national publicity secretary of the party, puts the blame squarely on the president’s men – and one formidable woman. He told the press this week that Jonathan lost the re-election because his promoters ran hate and negative campaigns that made it impossible for the leaders of the party to win enough support for him in the north. He named the apostles and the cardinals of the hate and negative campaigns as Jonathan’s wife, Dame Patience, Femi Fani-Kayode and Ayo Fayose, governor of Ekiti State.
He said: “The decision of the presidential campaign organisation to adopt and create a hate campaign strategy against” Buhari worked beautifully against Jonathan. None of them has bothered to deny the allegation. They do understand that it would make no rational sense for them to deny what is widely and incontestably out there in the public space.
The national chairman of the party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, spoke in the same vein. He told the press that Jonathan’s praise singers caused his problem because, if I may add, they made him deaf to what the common man was saying. He said: “In the face of abuse, insults and open ridicule by our friends and brothers, we supported our leader.” According to him, the truth was that “The perception of Jonathan and the PDP in the north was at an all time low because of the lies the people were told by politicians.”
Fayose, as usual, has his conspiracy theory. He claimed he has “cogent evidence of his (Mu’azu’s) unholy alliance with the opposition before the election.”
Jonathan blames internal wrangling in the party for his defeat. I have problems with that. He is the national leader of the party. His political fortune was at take and yet he could not contain the internal wrangling and unite his party behind him? I put it down to failure of leadership.
We may chuckle or even laugh but the sight of the members of the national working committee of the party and the president’s men going at one another’s throat does not a pretty sight make. The party has passed from a petty crisis to a deep crisis. Its leaders are beginning to sound as if they are conducing its funeral service. I thought the report submitted this week by Senator Ahmadu Ail, director-general of Jonathan’s presidential campaign organisation, would contain some important findings on what caused the defeat, not who caused it. But the occasion of its presentation to the president was promptly turned into an opportunity for throwing brickbats.
Two important points stick out of this mutual recrimination. One, the national working committee of the party and the presidential campaign organisation worked at cross purposes. Two, there was no primary custodian for Jonathan’s re-election campaign. He was not in charge; the national working committee was not in charge and the presidential campaign organisation, was not in charge. Little wonder, all sorts of characters moved in as foot soldiers armed with imprecations. Jonathan trusted fully in the power of money and prayer warriors. After all, what money cannot do, more money can. He has seen that even more money and prayer warriors have their limits in electoral campaigns.
We should take more a casual interest in what is happening to and in the PDP. The mutual recrimination contains positive signs that I find intriguing. One, for the first time, a political party has admitted that its campaign strategy was wrong and pretty much wrong-headed. This is important, very important. If a defeated party can focus on the what of its defeat, it makes for a more rational approach to modern politics.
Two, the strategy of negative and hate campaigns dripping with mindless personal attacks adopted by the party mercifully has had a short shelf life. It has run its course. And because it failed to achieve its purpose, we can be sure that the next PDP Jonathan who faces an APC Buhari would need no one to advise him to steer clear of hate and negative campaigns.
Three, Jonathan’s tribesmen believed that he did not just have to contest the election but must win, because according to his wife, the constitution says “two-two terms.” They hauled insults at anyone with a contrary opinion. But they added negative value to his marketability in the rest of the country. The important lesson here, and one that escaped Jonathan, is that no tribe, oil rich or not, has the capacity to make its son of the soil president of this country.
Four from what Mu’azu said, (note his reference to poor perception of Jonathan) anyone who thinks the electorate cannot see through the lies and the shenanigans of our politicians would be in for a huge and embarrassing surprise in future elections too.
Finally, my wager is that politics of issues and ideas will rise like the mythical Phoenix from the ashes of the defeat of politics of hate, bitterness and negative campaigns.
