History Savvy Nigerians would remember the days of Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, the then National chairman of the People Democratic Party (PDP) who openly bragged to Nigerians that the party would rule Nigeria for60 years uninterrupted.
The first annoying gaffe was the use of the word “rule” instead of “lead”. Like they say, No one gives what he/she lacks. The PDP actually never led. The party ruled people and there’s a huge difference between being led and being ruled.
Nigerians unleashed their “anger” on the Abia Prince and his party. His statement and his party kissed the dust in 2015.
The party was shellacked in a presidential election. Ever since, it’s been gasping for breath and has been so incompetent even as an opposition party
The ferocious tide that swept away President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did not spare the peace and panache of the party. Things began to fall apart immediately and it has been a progression in nosedive.
The states under the control of the umbrella also dwindled and the fall and shrinking has continued ever since.
Until recently, the PDPwas in charge of Edo State. A few months ago, the All Progressive Congress (APC), the broom logoed party took the state away from under the Umbrella.
The defeated party’s tears were yet to dry before another defeat hit it. Yes! Another defeat has come upon her. The upset in Ondo State. The broom has again triumphed over the umbrella. It seems Nigerians have decided to annihilate the party that boasted it would rule them and their country for 60 years.
Already lost the federal and many states and local governments to the All Progressive Congress, the PDP is also seriously wobbling as an opposition party. The voice of the party is drowned by individuals in the party.
Why are solutions to her internal challenges so far away? There are too many bosses.
PDP seems on a free fall. With the number of Trojan horses, all covertly rocking the boat, will the party ever resurrect? The signs are ominous.
It is very simple to trace how the once bubbling party hit this nadir. “Pride goes before a fall” they say. The PDP bestrode the Nigerian political space like a colossus. That reality ballooned into arrogance and mis-governance.
The runners of the party introduced the “Do or Die” politics that swallowed democracy. It led us to the shame we have today. Under the party, free and fair elections were conquered. Corruption was nationalized and legalized. The runners of the party personalized the Commonwealth of our nation and laid a solid foundation forinsecurity and perfidy in the oil subsidy regime.
The Judiciary fell from Caesar’s wife status and became very toothless. Today, Judges are being suspended over age falsifications. Whatever they do or say, the fingerprints of politicians are very visible.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has refused to live up to its name. We are forced to accept an electoral umpire that is only independent in print. INEC is tied to the apron strings of some powerful forces who are scandalously controlling the institution.
A large number of the current players in the executive and the legislature cut their political teeth in the PDP. Just when the umbrella ship was facing a tempest, they jumped out and grabbed the broom. From within the APC, they are destroying the party that sheltered them under the umbrella and winged them to fly. Some who are still under the tattered umbrella are Trojan horsing for the ruling party (APC). Their job is to finish it up eventually and their progression in that assignment is geometric.
Apart from failing in government and governance, the PDPhas failed woefully as an opposition party. The party is daily enmeshed in crisis and hardly speaks as a party amidst the growing hardship in the land. If the PDPknew her right from her left, a huge political capital would have been made from APC’s incompetence and obnoxious policies.
While APC keeps hitting the furnace, the supposed main opposition is in disarray. Nigerians are the worst for it.
The APC as opposition never missed anymoment. Lai Mohammed was a prodigy. Every goof of the PDP, then ruling party got a staccato of appropriate responses from Lai Mohammed who was the opposition party’s spokesman.
PDP has been unlucky with spokesmen. The current one is the worst. Today, the one speaking for it seems a rookie and perpetually weakened and spooked.
Many Nigerians also believe that the PDPtook up arms against herself by not sticking to her own sacred book. If the party had respected what it had in their books or what was gentlemanly agreed to do as a party, Atiku Abubakar wouldn’t have come up at all as the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election.
To pave the way forAlhaji Atiku Abubakar, the PDP denied its own books and threw open the race. Instead of emphatically telling Atiku Abubakar that the party’s presidential ticket was for a Southerner, the runners of the party ruined it. They torpedoed common sense and paid dearly for it. In fact, they may never finish paying.
Some accused the leadership of falling forthe allures of Atiku’s huge vault of cash. The decision to allow Atiku participate in the primary election under the party’s platform was the final straw that broke the already fragile back of the frail Carmel. The party hasn’t recovered from that political harakiri and seems not in a hurry to exit from the nadir.
The damage that the daily fierce exchanges between Atiku and Nyesom Wike who is serving the APC administration as a minister is huge and calamitous. Wike is seen by many as a man on a mission in PDP. He and his men haven’t hidden their decision to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027.
The party’s acting chairman and his endless controversies, the governors who are pro and against Wike, the party’s handling of the political crisis in Rivers State and the abysmal performance of many of her governors and many others existential realities are the reasons the once “biggest party in Africa” is astonishingly rattled to its foundation.
With optimism fast evaporating, cultivated calm giving way to despair, widespread and undisguised panic and with epic confidence now being forcefully shifted by frustration and desperation, hope is all time dim. The PDPhas taken up arms against itself and only a fierce acceptance of guilt and repentance would save the party. Otherwise, the umbrella would become a filthy rag. The party would die and never rise again.