What Happens When People-Deceive-People PDP

After more than a year of dithering procrastination, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP finally got its bickering tendencies to a meeting under the aegis of the National Executive Committee, NEC last Thursday.

The meeting was the first in about 18 months, a mark far off from the provisions of the PDP constitution which stipulates that the NEC should meet at least once every quarter.

The delay in meeting was underpinned by the lack of vigour in the opposition party which has seen the once vibrant party swimming in the doldrums. The lack of inertia has been variously attributed to a compromised leadership alleged to be remotely controlled by internal sabouters working in cahoots with strategists of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

For those with PDP DNA in their system, it was eerie that the once-dominant political party could have been so swept aside to the point of irrelevance in the polity.

While the state of inertia was salutary to the strategic plots of some within the party, many others with the desire to keep the party as a firm hotbed for the crystallisation of the Nigerian dream as originally intended picked up the courage to seek a change of direction for the PDP.

Commendation must be especially given to Segun Sowunmi who took the effort of taking the party to court to observe its constitution by holding the NEC meeting.

That court move was what finally compelled the party to hold the NEC meeting last Thursday.

The Ambassador Umar Damagum-led National Working Committee, NWC had in the opinion of some been seen as a parrot of the Nyesom Wike-led tendency.

It was for that reason that party leaders mostly inclined to Atiku Abubakar sought to pull Damagum away from his position as acting national chairman. His emergence in that office followed the court processes that forced Senator Iyorchia Ayu out of office as national chairman.

However, the Wike group cited the appeal filed by Ayu to reclaim his position as the reason why Damagum should stay on. In their view, there was no vacancy in the office given that the court could rule in favour of Ayu.

However, the Atiku camp just last Wednesday was able to convince Ayu to withdraw his case from the Court of Appeal.

That ordinarily should have cleared the way for a new national chairman to emerge from North Central in accordance with the party’s constitution.

However, the PDP national caucus at its meeting on Wednesday in setting the agenda for the NEC meeting of the following day resolved that issues pertaining to the office of national chairman should not be discussed at the NEC.

The oddity of that decision was further explained by the notable presence of Wike at the caucus meeting. No one has been able to explain what Wike was doing there given that he is not a member of the national caucus.

Even more, a man who was the previous day exerting his energies on the Renewed Hope mantra of the APC, and the following day, helping to set the agenda for the PDP NEC!

It was no surprise that the NEC meeting the following day ended tamely with the resolution that the change of leadership be taken to the next meeting in August.

Undoubtedly, the postponement is to buy time for the pro-Wike forces to marshal out other strategies to keep the party in their firm grip and as such subservient to the presidency.

No doubt the PDP NEC meeting ended with a communique that poured out invectives against the ruling APC government.

As party spokesman Debo Ologunagba reeled out his condemnations of the APC government one could well consider the thoughts of Wike, the top APC government official in the room: Jokers!

For a man who has been emotionally overworking himself in the last few days chorusing renewed hope, the FCT minister could not but have smirked at the communique of the PDP NEC.

It is a resolution founded on deceit being flapped by the humdrum echo of a dispirited internal opposition that had for the past few years flocked around Atiku.

With the prospects of Atiku running another presidential campaign increasingly facing opposition even from his friends, the old political war horse appears to have lost the fighting spirit. Certainly, the Atiku of yore could not have sat down in the same room with Wike for a caucus meeting.

Remarkably, the chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, Senator Bala Mohammed saw the lack of contention and verve at the NEC meeting as a victory against the prediction of doom that had foreshadowed the meeting.

That in itself is another deceit because the governor and every major actor know, that the PDP is on a rollercoaster designed by its enemies to suppress it.

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