PDP Adopts New Strategies to Regain Power

Fri, Jul 21, 2017 | By publisher


Featured, Special Report

After sorting out the leadership crisis which had engulfed the party for more than one year, the Peoples Democratic Party is making some strategic moves to boost membership base in order to reclaim power in 2019

By Olu Ojewale  |  Jul 31, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT  |

THE Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, appears to be on the mend. Since the Supreme Court on Wednesday, July 12, sacked the Ali Modu Sheriff-led national working committee of the party and reinstated Ahmed Makarfi, former governor of Kaduna, as the substantial national chairman of the PDP, the party has put in motion various activities to regain power in 2019.  To regain the centre government which the party lost to the current administration of the All Progressives Congress in the 2015 general elections, after 16 years in power, leaders of the party have been strategising on how to foster peace and get support of Nigerians in the 2019 general elections.

On Wednesday, July 19, Makarfi disclosed in an interview that the PDP was talking to a number of party to build a new coalition to try to prevent the APC led by President Muhammadu Buhari from winning a second term in office in 2019.

“We’re talking to more than 16 political parties to see how we can come and work together. Once we come together, we should be able to take back the government,” Makarfi said.

Ahead of that announcement, members of the National Expanded Caucus of the PDP met in Abuja, on Monday night, July 17, and resolved to rebuild the party ahead of the 2019 elections.

They said that there was the need to rebuild the party to accommodate those that would be joining it from other political parties and those who would be returning to party having left the fold during the leadership crisis.

The meeting was one out of the three to be held by three different organs of the party before fixing a date for its national convention.

It was the first gathering of members of the party since the Supreme Court sacked Modu Sheriff-led national working committee on Wednesday, July 12. Some leaders of the party, who spoke at the Monday’s meeting included former President Goodluck Jonathan and Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum.

At the meeting, Jonathan told the gathering, which included Ike Ekweremadu, deputy president of the Senate; David Mark, a former President of the Senate; and governors of Rivers, Taraba, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Gombe States that: “First thing to do is to build the party because a strong party is the key to expansion. A strong party acts like a magnet and will attract all the people. Nigerians still believe in the PDP. So many people including non-politicians were happy at the PDP victory in the Supreme Court.”

The former president insisted that the PDP remained the only party that could unite the country. He, therefore, commended party faithfuls for being so resolute to stand with the PDP.

In his remarks, Makarfi commended the members of the party for “being unyielding in their faith on the judicial system.”

It was then that he hinted that some members of other political parties would soon defect to the PDP. “This hall will not contain us by the time they start to come back to the PDP.  I will not tell you who they are or where they are,” the former governor of Kaduna State said.

Also, Fayose said that the APC must die in order for the PDP to live.

Fayose appealed to members of the party to go back to their states and regain the confidence of their constituencies ahead of the 2019 general elections.

He said: “If this party must win, get Nigerians’ confidence restored, our leaders must go home to boost the party. If this party must return to power, we need to get the confidence of Nigerians.”

Ali Modu SheriffAt another forum on Wednesday, July 19, Makarfi enlisted the services of Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State and Ibrahim Mantu, a former deputy Senate president, to play key roles to help the party reclaim power in 2019.

He said members of the standing reconciliation committee, headed by Dickson, with Mantu as his deputy, still had crucial roles to play in the rebuilding and rebranding processes of the PDP.

Addressing members of the disbanded committee who paid him a visit, Wednesday night in Abuja, after their valedictory session, Makarfi said the PDP was looking up to them  for support and active participation in all its meetings and activities. “I have no doubt that you will be prepared to do so. Whenever you hear anything that you need clarification on, please get in touch with me,” he said.

Dickson, in his remarks, said it was now the business of party leaders, under Makarfi’s leadership, to deepen reconciliation.  “It is your responsibility to build a united and strong party that would be the horse that warriors would ride on to go to the political battles ahead,” Dickson said.

Apart from mobilisation, there are also reports the party would be working towards constitutional amendments to tighten some loopholes which fuelled the recent party crisis. Consequently, Makarfi’s memo, entitled ‘Draft Proposals for Constitutional Amendments,’ was said to be the result of the adoption of the report of the PDP Strategy Review and Inter-Party Affairs Committee.

He said because of this, “it has become imperative that the PDP Constitution (2012 as amended) be amended to reflect some of the recommendations.”

The proposed amendments are expected to be tabled at the party’s national convention billed for August 12, in Abuja.

One of the proposals, entitled “Removal of the power of the national chairman to summon (convene) the national convention”, wants the NEC to be the sole determinant of national convention and not the national chairman as the current constitution demands.

The proposed amendments read in part, “Modifying Section (1)(a) and inserting a new Section(1)(b) to take away the power of the national chairman to ‘summon’ the National Convention, which appears in conflict with the power of NEC to ‘convene’ the National Convention  in Section (31(2)(a).

The memo said this was in line with “August 2016 Port Harcourt proposed amendment.”

Sheriff, had, indeed, as a former national chairman of the party, invoked the power conferred on him in Section 35(1) of the party constitution to call off the then May 2016 convention of the party in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The section 35 (1) of the party constitution says: “There shall be a national chairman who shall be the chief executive of the party, and his functions shall be to (a) summon and preside over the meetings of the national convention, the National Executive Committee, the National Caucus and the National Working Committee of the party.”

Besides, the proposed amendments similarly take away the power of the national chairman to be a signatory to the party’s bank accounts. The current practice makes the national chairman a mandatory signatory to the party’s bank accounts.

Under the topic “Revising signatories to the party’s accounts”, the party is proposing that the chairman be replaced “with the treasurer being mandatory signatory, with either the secretary or financial secretary.”

Similarly, the party is proposing the reintroduction of Section (47)(6), which was revised in the December 2014 national convention, in which the appropriate executive committee’s appointment of a person from the area or zone of the former occupant of an office “to serve out the tenure of the officer” instead of “pending the conduct of election to fill the vacant post.”

Similarly, the proposed amendment also favours those who had left the party and those who might want to join it from another party ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Hence, the proposed amendment states that the return of those who had left the party before and now rejoining it should be made automatic. This is a departure from the old order whereby those returning are placed on probation for a period of not less than a year.

The proposal, therefore, called for the deleting of Section 8(8)(b), Section (8)(9) and modification of Section (8)(8) to make rejoining and readmission into the party by a member, who had left, automatic upon his submission of a written application to that effect to his ward secretary.

However, it said: “Whereas, readmission is automatic, waiver requirements for contesting elections and enjoying political appointments remain, and, if thought necessary, would be strengthened.”

In addition, the party wants the Section (50)(4)(7) to be amended by reducing the period of membership for seeking the party’s ticket and political appointment from two years and one year respectively to a “uniform of six months unless the appropriate executive committee, at its discretion, gives a waiver to the contrary.”

The party is also proposing the election of two national chairmen for the party, one from the North and another from the South.

That notwithstanding, the proposal says: “in the event that the National chairman ceases to hold office or when absent for any reason, the vice-chairman from the region of the national chairman would act pending when a substantial chairman would be elected.

While the party is trying to rebuild, it will also need to pacify some aggrieved members who were with Sheriff during the crisis. Although, there have been calls for stick and carrot for them, it is yet to be seen whether there is any move at all to reconcile the Sheriff group to the party.

In fact, Sheriff said he was not invited to the National Expanded Caucus of the PDP meeting which held in Abuja on Monday, July 17. But some of his former loyalists were said to be at the gathering. The former governor of Borno State said later that he was not invited to the meeting.

Makarfi’s victory appears to be having a backlash in the South –West. On Wednesday, July 19, some members of the PDP, belonging to the Sheriff camp, defected to the Mega Party of Nigeria, MPN. Ebenezer Alabi, the former PDP chairman in Ondo State, announced the defection in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. Leke Adekoya, the director general of Omo Ilu Foundation, who belongs to the camp of Buruji Kashamu, a senator, also joined in the defection.

According to them, the PDP has been hijacked by “vampires.” They told journalists at the office of the MPN on old Ife Road, Ibadan, that they decided to leave the party because the Ahmed Makarfi group was not magnanimous in victory.

Alabi accused Governor Fayose and Iyiola Omisore, Osun State senator, of substituting members of their state’s executives at the PDP national headquarters in Abuja, with their supporters.

He explained that, as followers of Sheriff, they could no longer cope with the level of impunity in the PDP, which he said was the original cause of disagreement between the two groups. He further disclosed that the leadership was already holding discussion with members of the group in the South-West regions to join the Mega Party to show their strength at the next general elections.

Nevertheless, Cairo Ojouigboh, deputy national vice-chairman of the defunct Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the PDP, said they were still members of the party despite the recent Supreme Court judgement. In an interview, Ojouigboh after meeting some members who were loyal to the former chairman of the party, in Warri, on Sunday, July 16, said that the group was still waiting the receipt of the Supreme Court judgement for their lawyers to study and advise appropriately.

“For now, we are still members of the party and we will be ready to work for the success of PDP in future elections,” he said.

On his part, Austin Ogbabunor, factional chairman of the party in Delta State, urged the former leadership of the party to note the challenges of the party in the state and integrate them into the party.

Ogbabunor, however, said that they would not hesitate to form their own party should the PDP in Delta refuse to absorb them. That, in essence, means that the PDP has a lot to do in reconciliation across the country to have any chance of displacing the APC from power.

In any case, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has stated that the APC, his party, could not be bothered by the PDP’s threats to regain power. Okorocha made his comments after leading his fellow APC governors to the Presidential Villa to see acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday, July 20. He stated: “PDP is a non-issue; we don’t even care about that. We defeated them when they were in power, so what is different when we are now in power?”

Besides, he said: “Very soon we will have a convention…. The convention not taking place has nothing to do with the absence of the president or the acting president. We are just putting our house in order and making sure things are in the right form before we kick off.”

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