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The Peoples Democratic Party is having serious problems on its hands as its governors refuse to let go of their ambition to control the party machinery and dictate who gets certain positions in their respective states
| By Olu Ojewale | Nov. 24, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT |
BY the close of work on Friday, November 14, all aspirants who want to contest governorship, senatorial and House of Representatives seats on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, would have submitted their completed nomination forms. This would give the party the necessary opportunity to plan for its convention slated for December 11. If everything goes smoothly, the ruling party is not expected to have a rowdy convention because some consensus candidates have already emerged. For instance, the party has only one presidential aspirant in the person of President Goodluck Jonathan. But that cannot be said of elective posts which are still seriously being contested by interest groups and individuals who have vowed not to jettison their political ambition no matter what happens. This scenario has resulted in a clash of ambition by aspirants for elective posts in many of the PDP states.
One of the most contentious issues for the party so far has been how to accommodate the senatorial ambition of some two-term governors who want to replace serving senators from their respective states. Besides, the governors are insisting on deciding their successors while also having a say in other elective post in their states. All these have put them at loggerheads with other aspirants in their states.
It is, however, the clash between the PDP governors who want to replace serving senators that has been generating so much heat lately that the Senate refused to seat for two days on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 5 and 6. This forced President Jonathan to hold a closed-door meeting with all the stakeholders involved on Thursday, November 6. The meeting agreed that 40 serving PDP senators would get automatic tickets to contest re-election in 2015. According to sources, Jonathan and the Adamu Mu’azu-led National Working Committee of the PDP at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, agreed that at least two serving senators from each state should be handed automatic tickets for the senatorial polls slated for February 14, 2015.
But there was a twist as the automatic tickets were said to have been withdrawn following another meeting with the president on Tuesday night, November 11. At the meeting, it was learnt that the PDP governors told the president that he and the party’s leadership should take another look at automatic tickets for senators. The governors reportedly said that instead of granting 40 automatic tickets to senators, they (governors) should be allowed to deal with the issue and review it “on a state-by-state basis.”
Based on the new development, the PDP caucus in the Senate met behind closed doors for more than two hours on Wednesday, November 12, to review the outcome of its last meeting at the Villa. At the meeting presided over by David Mark, Senate president, the lawmakers resolved to battle the Presidency and the party leadership. They also resolved to continue the work-to-rule action which they had embarked upon last week. The consequence of the strike means that the budget for the next financial year and other pending important bills may not be passed by the current assembly.
Apart from that, the PDP may also lose some of its senators to the opposition. A newspaper report indicated that 11 PDP senators from the North-West were already threatening to dump the party because of what they claimed to be the high-handedness of the PDP leaders and governors in their zone. “If care is not taken, the PDP could become a minority in the Senate before the end of this year. The danger again is that going back and forth on agreements reached with the highest organs of the PDP is painting a bad picture of the party,” one of the embattled senators was quoted as saying.
The PDP senators had earlier embarked on a work-to-rule, following the outcome of the November 1, ward congresses which they alleged were hijacked by the governors. No fewer than nine governors are believed to be interested in going to the Senate thereby infuriating many senators who want to return to the Senate. By press time, both interest camps stuck to their guns promising not to yield ground for each other. One of such persons is Governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue who wants the Senate seat currently occupied by Barnabas Gemade, former national chairman of the PDP. Suswan warned that the party could implode should automatic tickets be conceded to the serving senators and vowed not to step down for Gemade. The governors said though he had tremendous respect for Gemade, nothing would stop him from contesting the Senate seat. He insisted that politics should not be based on age but on the people’s acceptance.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja, Suswan said: “It is about who the people want and the people want me in that zone and based even on our own understanding in the senatorial zone, he should not be feeling entitled – you know there is an entitled mentality. That is what is the problem. If something does not belong to you by the local arrangement on ground and you now feel entitled because you were this, you were that, all of us have been something. So, I believe that we should go to the contest. I am not saying that he should step down for me. I will not go to Mr. President to ask Gemade to step down for me.
“If we go to the field and he defeats me I will support him and I expect the same from him. But this propaganda in the newspapers that the Presidency or Abuja has stepped in, that won’t work. That will not work.”
The governor argued that concession of elective offices was not democratic and should be discouraged. He said further: “The PDP has not given any person automatic ticket. Even with President Goodluck, we unanimously adopted him as our sole candidate and we want that to be a precedent subsequently that a sitting president should have the right of first refusal. We want to also extend that to governors eventually. But this is what will evolve. It is not something that you go and put as a law. So, no person has given any senator any automatic ticket. The party and the president feel that as we grow institutions that certain things should be part of growing that institution but this is by way of an appeal where it is possible and practicable and so when people begin to engage in propaganda and say they were given automatic tickets, that is not the way democracy is practised.”
Suswan vehemently insisted that there was no agreement that the senators would be given automatic tickets. “So, there is nothing like automatic ticket given to any person. The person who would have been given automatic ticket would have been the president but that wasn’t done. What was done was that the governors met and said, ‘look we will support only President Jonathan’. The legislature said, look we will support only President Jonathan and when the National Working Committee of the party met and the National Executive Committee, they also unanimously agreed that the President should be the sole candidate of our own party.”
Stakeholders from Anambra North Senatorial Constituency of Anambra State, comprising Onitsha North, Onitsha South, Ogbaru, Anambra East, Anambra West, Oyi and Ayamelum local governments areas, are equally opposed to giving automatic tickets to incumbent senators to contest general elections. In a communiqué issued after their meeting on Monday, November 6, the stakeholders argued that it was undemocratic and an aberration for the party leadership to introduce such a new method at a time internal democracy was becoming more matured, interesting and attractive to both local politicians and the international community.
In the communiqué read on their behalf by Frank Oramulu, a former chairman of Anambra State PDP, after an emergency meeting at Awkuzu, Oyi Local Government Area of the state, the stakeholders said it was only non-progressive representatives who alienated themselves while in office and who never bothered visiting their electorate or keeping in touch with their roots that should be asking for such cheap and undemocratic favour. The stakeholders said: “It is a terrible aberration. To allow such representatives to go back without the support of their people smacks of anything decent and civilised. We think that we have passed that era and like Biblical Israelites – there is no going back to Egypt.”
The fallout of November 1, congress is also haunting many PDP states across the country. In Plateau State congress was held in 15 of the 16 local government areas while that of Pankshin Local Government Area was postponed on alleged disagreement among the PDP chieftains in the areas. Even then, the result of the congress has remained a contentious issue currently tearing the party apart with leaders of the various interest groups within the party calling for cancellation in the interest of the party. “This congress has further divided us. The greed of a few people is threatening the continued existence of our party as a ruling party in Plateau State. Unless this is corrected, I fear for the PDP in our state,” Abba Gaya, a chieftain of the party, said.
Gaya argued that it would be in the interest of the PDP to quickly placate those estranged by the congress otherwise it would be difficult for the party to win votes in the state next year. “What we have in our hands is a situation where the likes of Jimmy Cheto, Sir Fidelis Tapgun (a former state governor), Senator Joshua Dariye (a former state governor), Jonathan Sheni, John Alkali and many others will be up against the PDP and President Jonathan in 2015 here in Plateau State. A situation like that is a threat to Mr. President’s re-election bid,” he said.
In any case, the crisis in Plateau State is largely seen as power tussle between Governor Jonah Jang and Joshua Dariye, his predecessor in office. The two leaders’ struggle for the control of the party is believed to have torn the PDP in the state into two. While Dariye and his supporters who recently returned to the PDP from the Labour Party are insisting on their eligibility to contest for the party primaries, Jang was said to be insisting that they were yet to formalise their return.
“There is no way this will stand. PDP belongs to all of us. Jang was in the ANPP when we laboured to build the PDP in the state. He cannot dictate to us simply because he is the Governor. We are optimistic that the national leadership of the party will wade into the matter and ensure the right thing is done. Failure to do this, I fear that the PDP may lose the next elections here. In the interest of the party, Jang and his gang must be curtailed,” Abba Gaya, one of those who followed Dariye to defect to Labour Party many years ago, said.
Trouble started between Jang and Dariye recently following a statement by Pam Sale, state secretary of the PDP, to the effect that some of the aspirants, using the party logo to print campaign materials to desist as the party regarded them as impostors. “They are those who had left the party to other parties, fought the party in the last elections and today want to contest without being officially received as returnees. The likes of Cheto, Tapgun, Dariye, Sheni and Alkali should kindly save themselves from embarrassment by not involving themselves in any of the party’s activities in the state for now. They were free to join the party after the PDP primaries in the state,” Sale said.
Suspecting that the statement was meant to prevent him and other returnees from taking part in the primaries, Dariye was said to have approached the national leadership of the party which gave him and other returnees the blanket waiver offered defectors to the party nationwide by the president. But that seems to have become an albatross for the leadership of the party in the state which decided to scheme out Dariye and his group.
Apparently worried by the turn of events in the state, Gyang Goshit, a former lawmaker and House of Representatives aspirant on the platform of the party, said there was an urgent need for the party to put its house in order if it must win the next elections. “PDP is currently an endangered species here in Plateau… Already, there are talks of mass defection should a faction have all its way. There are also talks of violent primaries. All these will only pave the way for the opposition to garner votes in the Plateau come 2015,” Goshit said.
In Cross River State, the fight for the sole of the PDP in the state is between Governor Liyel Imoke and Doanld Duke, his predecessor and erstwhile friend and Imoke and Victor Ndoma-Egba, Senate majority leader, on the other hand. The outcome of the November 1, congress was said to have been in favour of Imoke’s candidate but allegations later surfaced that the results handed over to the national leadership of the party in Abuja were contrary to the wishes of party members in the state. The governor’s loyalists who claimed to have seen the earlier outcome of the congress as a re-affirmation of Imoke’s leadership of the party in the state, alleged that new results was an attempt by some recent returnees into the party, led by Duke, to use their closeness to some people in government to short-change the people of the state.
The political struggle between the Governor Imoke and some chieftains of the party is said to be precipitated on the 2015 governorship, senatorial and other tickets of the party. Although Imoke is not vying for any position, his aides say he is “nonetheless determined to ensure that the state get a set of performers to continue after his exit. Imoke’s current struggles with these gladiators have nothing to do about any personal ambition. It is largely about entrusting the state into safe hands as he leaves in 2015,” an aide of the governor said.
The crisis peaked when the state chapter of the PDP, on Friday, November 7, suspended Goddy-Jeddy Agba, a leading governorship aspirant, alongside twelve other members of the party. Duke is an ardent supporter of Agba. Hence, the development was seen as a way of preventing the former governor from getting his man into the state house. “Both Duke and Agba cannot deliver votes for Jonathan or PDP in Cross-River State. We all listened to Agba at his rally. The problem now is that our people wanted him to tell them what his agenda will be as Governor. He said nothing of such. All he and his godfather did was to pour venoms on Imoke for more than two hours. I don’t think our people will follow such people. Our fear now is that Duke’s return to the politics of the state from his self imposed exile may also mean the return of violent politics for which we remember his era as governor. Otherwise, his speech would be full of so much bile against Imoke,” a party official said.
However, Ntufam John Okon, state chairman of the party, said the members were suspended because they failed to exhaust all available conflict resolution mechanisms within the party and had gone contrary to the party’s constitution by dragging the party to court. He maintained that following the just concluded delegate election, a lot of issues occurred which the party could have resolved using its machinery. He said that the PDP in the state would also have suspended Ndoma-Egba and Chris Eta, a member representing Ikom in the House of Representatives, but lacked the power to do so and had referred its case to the National Assembly.
According to party sources in the state, Imoke and Ndoma-Egba have been battling for the control of the central senatorial zone where both hail from. While loyalists of the governor insisted that Imoke had nothing against the senator or his ambition to return to the senate for a fourth term, there were also complaints from Ndoma-Egba’s that governor was working against his interest. Consequently, the duo had a frosty relationship leading to the last congress. The party also suffered as the loyalists of the two leaders continued to hold separate meetings especially in their native Central senatorial district.
In Ondo State PDP, two factions conducted separate ward congresses to elect delegates that will participate in the party’s primaries. The two groups laying claim to the party structure are the dissolved state executive committee led by Ebenezer Alabi and the newly constituted Caretaker Committee headed by Dare Adeleke.
The crisis is a actually a fallout of the lingering crisis between the defected Labour Party, LP, members led by Governor Segun Mimiko and the old PDP members under the watch of Olusola Oke, former national Legal Adviser of the party, who ought to be in charge of the party structure in the state.
The defections were the fallout of the dissolution of the state executive committee of the PDP in the state by the NWC, following the defection of Mimiko from the Labour Party to the PDP. The dissolution was in flagrant disobedience of an Abuja federal high court ruling that the status quo should be maintained in a suit filed by the Ondo State PDP executive committee, seeking to restrain the PDP national leadership from dissolving the Alabi-led state executive committee to pave the way for the total takeover of party apparatus by Mimiko. Following the dissolution of the previous party executive, two members of the state House of Assembly defected from the party to the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, last week. The two defectors are Gbenga Edema (Ilaje) and Vincent Olaseinde (Ose).
That has been causing serious tension in the party following the stalemate over congress. The two camps were still awaiting the position of the national leadership of the party on the development even as both sides have vowed to resist any attempt by the PDP to recognise the other one.
“The situation is that we will not have newcomers placed over and above us in our own home. Rather than suffer such ignominy, we will fight to the very last of our breadth. We urge our leaders not to throw the party in Ondo State into further crisis by recognising newcomers as our leaders,” a party chieftain said. To prevent violent clashes, the party state secretariat, along Oyemekun Road, Akure, the state capital, has again been sealed off and taken over by policemen after two groups of party youths clashed. The building, which had been serving as the State PDP secretariat for the past 16 years was once sealed by the Police immediately the party NWC dissolved the State executive and constituted a caretaker committee.
In Ebonyi State, the PDP caucus in the House of Representatives on Monday, November 10, described as unacceptable, the emergence of Onyebuchi Chukwu, former minister of health, as the PDP ‘consensus’ candidate in the governorship election in 2015. At a news briefing at the National Assembly, The caucus said it rejected Chukwu, saying he was solely hand-picked by Governor Martin Elechi without true consultation and participation of the stakeholders of the party and the state. The caucus members include Sylvester Ogbaga, Christopher Omoisu, Linus Okorie, Tobias Okwuru and Peter Ogeali, said: “We are aware that no true attempt at consensus building was undertaken and that no consensus has been achieved on the issue. For instance, no attempt was made or has been made to consult the National Assembly caucus, the state Assembly caucus, traditional institutions and other stakeholders in the state.”
The five-member caucus accused the governor of planning to retire them (lawmakers) prematurely from their political careers with acts of abuse meant to undermine the electoral process. “All the highlighted acts of abuse of the constitution of the party and the approved guidelines were undertaken to circumvent the process, manipulate the delegates’ list and subsequently proceed to return a set of predetermined candidates for the positions under the party without genuine and credible primary election.”
Appealing to the NWC of the PDP, to ensure transparency in the coming elections, the caucus pleaded with the governor to ensure a level-playing field for the aspirants. The lawmakers said: “We appeal that all organs of the party should remain on the alert to ensure that the PDP candidates in the state emerge through credible primaries achieved through adherence to the party constitution, extant guidelines and approved processes and procedures. For emphasis, we plead that the governor should be prevailed upon to grant us and indeed all aspirants a level-playing field to canvass our candidature and not seek to ‘retire’ us ignominiously through underhand methods capable of truncating the system and destroying the party and its electoral chances.”
From all indications, it appears the governors are also not going to surrender their authority in controlling the part machinery without a fight. Part of the control was that they could endorse their own successors and determine their own political future. To start with, a good number of the governors have relocated to Abuja to safeguard their interest by staying close to the leadership of the party. This has in effect, reduced the level of governance in the states as the governors are now believed to be more interested in their own political future and who succeed them than their tenure which would end in six months’ time.
Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum, NSGF, who is a senatorial aspirant on the platform of the PDP, in an interview recently, said the face-off between some senators and governors aspiring to go the Senate was borne out greed. “I am aware that people go out of frustration and are saying sentimentally that they should not allow governors to come to the Senate because they said nobody can control people like me and I said that I thought I am going to represent my people in the Senate.
“If I win, I am going to represent my people in the Senate but it is not a question of who would control me. But the question that readily came to my mind is that how are you sure that in 2015 , you would be where you are that already you are planning or discriminating against them that you don’t want governors to be there because of two or three governors that were in the Senate and the two governors were giving them tough time or making things difficult for them and they are now saying they did not want some governors and they are even sending forms to people to come and contest election into the Senate against other people. So, you see it is for their own selfish reasons, it was not for the benefits of the people or for the country. It is for protecting their jobs that they are doing so that the political difference that you see is not the one that is going to move the people.”
Perhaps, in order not to call attention to himself, Boluwaji Kunlere, a senator from Ondo State and one of the beneficiaries of the 40 automatic tickets who had agreed to grant Realnews interview, changed his mind. He refused to take our calls and did not respond to text message sent to him. Nevertheless, political observers said it would be difficult for the PDP to have the kind of support it enjoys now at the next dispensation because of the level of acrimonies going on in the various states where two-term governors have made themselves overlords. What also appears to be incontrovertible is that many of its legislators may go to the opposition parties to try their luck thereby reducing the fortune of the party. That, indeed, is the expected reward for the clash of ambition among politicians in PDP.
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