Recent developments in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should ordinarily have been taken as the normal, internal palpitations in a healthy political institution. But they were not. The PDP was the country’s ruling party for 16 years and is in possession of an expansive institutional memory to benefit our democracy.The PDP, as the country’s leading opposition party, has a formidable structure to help keep the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in check.
But, as the APC marked its first anniversary in power, the absence of the opposition was very glaring. Instead of articulating its own informed scorecard of the APC Federal Government at this important milestone, the leaders of the PDP were enmeshed in a complex leadership tussle for the control of its future.
The squabbles saw the leadership fragmented into at least four factions claiming authority at the national level. The factions included those led by Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was sacked as the interim national chairman by officials at the recent convention of the party in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The second group was led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi, who was appointed as the chairman of a caretaker committee at the convention. A third tendency was the collegiate leadership centered on the founding fathers of the party including Prof. Jerry Gana and Senator Ibrahim Mantu, among others. A fourth group coalesced around the Board of Trustees (BoT) which claimed to have intervened to stop the fragmentation.
The seeming crisis in the PDP is of concern to watchers of our democracy in Nigeria because we need strong alternative political parties to strengthen our multi party system and keep the current party in power on its toes.
The many mistakes that the PDP made as a governing party took place because of the absence of any virile opposition party. We, as a nation, should avoid the mistake of having one dominant ruling party, as this predisposes those in power to impunity and corruption as experience has shown. When this is the case, it is the ordinary people that suffer the misrule more.
We urge both the ruling party and the other political parties to strengthen their internal processes and give their political outfits the character, distinct identity and vision that will give Nigerians real choice when next we go to the polls.
Seventeen years after the military left the political scene, party politics should have grown beyond the mere tussle for power or posts. It should now be more about where each political party wishes to take Nigeria and how they want to achieve it.
This can only happen if our politicians learn from their mistakes and build on areas where they have done well.
Culled from: Vanguard_news
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