Theophilus Abbah
10 March 2008
analysis
The emergence of Prince Vincent Ogbulafor as National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the weekend has broken former President Oluse-gun Obasanjo's hegemony over the party. Obasanjo's "no shaking" refrain has been shaken, and his dream of dominating the political sphere for a long time has been cut short.
While the events saw the Obasanjo elements in the party wearing long faces, as long as they lasted at Eagle Square in Abuja last Saturday, many staff members of the PDP jubilated openly at the return the Abia State-born prince to Wadata Plaza, the national headquarters of the ruling party. They sang his praises to high heavens, saying as National Secretary, Prince Ogbulafor was staff-friendly, putting their welfare at the front-burner all the time. But being National Chairman of the party is a different ball game. At this time, the buck stops at his desk and there will be no persons to blame - neither President Umaru Musa Yar'adua nor the Board of Trustees Chairman, Chief Obasanjo - when things go wrong. It is from this perspective that the new chairman might view the responsibility thrust upon him at the special national convention last weekend.
As he mentioned in his acceptance speech, one of the major challenges facing the PDP is the lack of unity. Though this disease began to afflict the party shortly after it was delivered in 1998, it has continued to grow along with the PDP, and has distorted the image of the ruling party to the extent that several uncomplimentary acronyms are being derived from the party's abbreviation. The problem of disunity was aggravated shortly after the 2003 elections, when former President Obasanjo's deliberate attempt to demand loyalty polarised the PDP. The division was so visible that from the national headquarters down the line to the ward level, it was possible to identify those who belonged to either Obasanjo or his former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar. Under this atmosphere, the word "loyalty" was brought into the political vocabulary of the PDP. Of course, to be loyal meant to do Obasanjo's bidding and to join the war against Atiku Abubakar. The battle graduated from being subtle to a street fight, and at its highest point, it led to the break-away of a faction to form the Action Congress (AC) and other political parties.
It would be very ambitious for Prince Ogbulafor to think that he can ensure that all the founding fathers of the PDP, most of whom are mourning the abortion of their dream for the party, would return to its fold. For instance, it would take a miracle for former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar to close the AC shop and return to the PDP, especially considering the fact that AC won Lagos State in the 2007 gubernatorial election, many seats in the National Assembly, and faces the prospect of winning others in the forthcoming repeat elections.
However, it is apparent that, for the new chairman, there is a framework for ensuring reconciliation through the work of the committee headed by former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme. President Yar'Adua instituted the committee as his own approach to ending the festering squabbles that have given the PDP a bad name. But against this spirit, the last executive kept the report away from public knowledge, as it was believed that it did not favour the status quo established by the Obasanjo system. But those who have an insight into it have said it could go a long way to resolving some of the lingering crisis in the PDP. Hailed as having been thoroughly done, the Ekwueme report gives a state-by-state crisis situation in the PDP and recommended measures for reconciliation. Of course, on account of the intervention of the committee, frontline members of the party, like former Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Umar Ghali Na'Abba have returned into the PDP fold. What this means is that if the Ekwueme report is considered with an open mind, it could help the new chairman in sorting out the knotty issues that have drawn a dividing line among those who, ordinarily, meant well for the PDP.
Besides unity, the next challenge Prince Ogbulafor may contend with has to do with the public perception of the party. Nigerians are cynical about the party and this is clear through the negative headlines newspapers run about the PDP. But with the events of last weekend, the process of altering this cynicism has begun. Against all expectations that Obasanjo would further his imposition syndrome in the election of the National Chairman, Nigerians were glad to learn that President Yar'adua insisted on a break-away from the ugly tradition by insisting on the election of a neutral aspirant to the position. Prince Ogbulafor can build on this fresh way of thinking by encouraging politics without bitterness among members of the PDP. It is imperative of the new chairman to ensure that his party wins more states, but this should be done by transparent means. Allegations that security operatives cooperate with the party to commit electoral fraud - though some of them are difficult to prove - gives the impression that the characters of politicians in the party need a little bit of refining. As an experienced politician, Prince Ogbulafor is aware that politics and governance are about service. If PDP governors render service to the people, they would not need to engage in desperate measures to retain their seats or to win elections. But over the years, some PDP-controlled states have been accused of non-performance, creating room for opposition parties to make deep inroads that unsettled sitting governors. Nigerians would want to see a PDP which has a transparent way of electing flag bearers at the polls. They would want to see a PDP in which the rule of law is adhered to strictly, and a PDP which responds to the needs and aspirations of the people.
Dovetailing the above is the need for the party to implement its manifesto and give direction to its elected governors and representatives at all levels. In the last nine years since the party has been in power, there has not been a deliberate effort to ensure that the executive focused on the implementation of the party's social and economic agenda. For instance, the founding fathers of the PDP would bet with their lives that the kind of wholesale privatisation carried out by former President Obasanjo was not part of the designs of the party. A review of the process of the privatisation of several national assets showed that they were flawed, and with further scrutiny, it was discovered that they were sold to some cronies. President Yar'adua is facing a tough task trying to correct some of these ills, but with a very clear and unambiguous guide from the party, such haphazard, thoughtless and self-seeking privatisation policy could never have been conceived, not to talk of being implemented by Oba-sanjo, in the first place.
The PDP is one of the political parties with a clear manifesto and strategies for implementing them. For instance, on the economy, the PDP says: "Improvement in the well-being of Nigerians is the ultimate objective of the PDP's economic policy, whose economic policy thrust is to make accessible to every Nigerian the basic needs of life. Significant reduction of poverty by at least 50% from the current levels must be achieved by the policy within five years and this poverty reduction shall be the true indicator for measuring well-being, as would be demonstrated by ensuring food on every table and food security; unemployment reduction; and provision of rural infrastructure including potable water, electricity, basic education and health, roads, telecommunication and housing."
Many Nigerians would be shocked to read the above lines as part of the PDP's manifesto. In the past nine years, very few PDP governors have attempted to implement some of these designs, but the majority of them are lacking in this respect. If the party had impressed it upon the governors that they must ensure they implemented the manifesto, a lot of problems facing the PDP would never have arisen. As the immediate past chairman used to tell party flag bearers, "your achievements in office should be your campaign posters." If many of the aspirants into political offices performed up to a half of the objectives set for them by the party, the struggle for power would never have been as intense as it is in the country today.
From the foregoing, it is apparent that the task before the new PDP chairman is beyond that of calming the raging tension in the party. It is given that with the removal of the Obasanjo hegemony from the PDP, there will be a new lease of life, a new atmosphere of friendship and cooperation among many path members across whatever divide there has been. Already Prince Ogbulafor has promised to dialogue with all the other 25 contestants for the position of chairman to ensure that if there is any bad blood attending to the event of last weekend, they would be flushed out. As it were, the new chairman faces the challenge of reforming the party to make it a vibrant and relevant to the Nigerian people.
Incidentally, Prince Ogbu-lafor has all it takes to achieve this objective. As a former National Secretary of the PDP, Ogbulafor knows the sources of most of the problems facing the PDP. If he is sincere in resolving them, it would be as easy task for him. Of course, his victory at the polls came as a result of his thorough understanding to the terrain in the PDP. Without engaging in fanfare, his was able to penetrate the structure of the PDP and this gave him an edge over other contestants, including former Governor Sam Egwu and former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim. Apart from his service to the PDP, the man who studied Economics/Politics Science in the United States and graduated in 1975 has held several government appointments, including having served as Minister of Economic Matters and Special Projects in 2001.
From its spread across Nigeria and its structure, the PDP has enormous goodwill, which, if harnessed properly, would give the country the kind of leadership it has been yearning for since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
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