…As Atiku, Wike’s men return to trenches ahead of Thursday scheduled party’s NEC meeting
From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
It is a little over one year after the 2023 general elections. But the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is still struggling to find its bearing. The opposition party lost the February 25, 2023 presidential election to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The PDP apart from winning only 10 governorship seats in the gubernatorial election, it also failed to regain the majority in the National Assembly.
However, since after the general elections, it has been one week, one trouble, for the PDP as it has continued to grapple with internal wrangling, which largely contributed to its abysmal performance in the said 2023 polls.
Prior to the 2023 general elections, a group of five governors led by Nyesom Wike, who is also a former governor of Rivers State, had fallen out with Atiku Abubakar and the PDP leadership, following the nomination of former Delta governor, Ifeanyi Okowa as PDP vice presidential candidate.
The Wike group popularly referred to as the G-5 Governors had insisted on the removal of Iyorchia Ayu as PDP chairman and as a condition for peace.
However, while the former Senate President insisted that he would not quit, Atiku maintained that it was not in his place to ask Ayu to resign. Thus, the PDP went to the poll with a divided house, leading to the party’s heavy defeat.
Ayu was later removed as national chairman, immediately after the 2023 polls, following his sack as a member of the opposition party by his ward in Benue State.
But, the former Senate President, who was replaced by the PDP Deputy National Chairman (North), Umar Damagum, as acting chairman, is currently challenging his ouster at the Court of Appeal.
Nevertheless, the party has remained polarized with Atiku’s loyalists calling for sanction against the former Rivers governor over alleged anti-party activities. The romance between Wike, who is currently serving as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory ( FCT) in the APC-led administration, has remained a source of concern for the opposition party.
Sunday Sun gathered that efforts to rebuild the party is being stalled by power tussle amongst PDP bigwigs at both the national and state chapters. This is especially as the cracks in the various organs of the party have made it impossible for the PDP to hold a meeting of its National Executive Committee (lNEC) to take decisions on critical issues.
A former PDP presidential aspirant, Cosmas Ndukwe, summed up the situation in the opposition party thus: “The problem in the PDP is still widening by the day. They are arguing over who should be the national chairman and who would not be. The camp that will produce the national chairman and the camp that will not produce the national chairman. The camp that will produce the secretary and if the secretary that left to contest in Imo State should stay or would not stay.”
Former Ogun State governorship aspirant, Segun Sowunmi, apparently exasperated by the state of affairs, recently filed a suit before a Federal High Court in Abuja to compel the PDP National Working Committee ( NWC) to convene a NEC meeting.
Ostensibly disturbed, the Bauchi State governor and Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum, Bala Mohammed, while speaking at a recent party function, said that the opposition party cannot afford the luxury of crisis in its fold.
“We are hoping to make sure that we reposition the party, reduce and minimize rancour and division, which have characterized us in the past because of our size and our divergent interests. Certainly, we don’t have the luxury of doing that.
“The country is suffering. There is a lot of hunger and anger, for the third time the country is looking up to us, we cannot continue to be the weeping boys or girls or women.
“We must close rank, give benefit of doubts to each other, give benefit of doubt to the party.. We don’t have the luxury of division,” Mohammed fumed.
Two weeks ago , the PDP NWC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, announced that the much awaited NEC meeting would hold on April 18.
The NEC meeting, Sunday Sun, gathered is expected to take a decision on the issue of getting a substantive national chairman for the PDP, sanctions against those alleged to have indulged in anti-party activities during the last general elections, among other issues.
It would be recalled that the PDP National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature, at a recent meeting with chairmen of state chapters of the party mandated them to submit the list of members suspected to have indulged in anti- party activities to the national secretariat for onward transmission to NEC for necessary actions.
Atiku, Wike men return to trenches
Nevertheless, the scheduling of the PDP NEC meeting, which would be the first in 19 months, had re-ignited the battle for supremacy between the supporters of Atiku and Wike.
Ahead of the NEC meeting, the two camps have returned to the trenches to plot on how to gain the upper hand in the fight for the soul of the party. Inside sources said that the bone of contention, this time, is which group would produce the national chairman.
It was gathered that while the Wike loyalists would prefer Damagum to remain as acting chairman, Atiku’s men are moving for the appointment of a substantive national chairman from the North-central, where Ayu hails from. Damagum is from Yobe State in the Northeast.
The renewed rivalry, Sunday Sun gathered is about the control of the party machinery ahead of the PDP 2025 National Convention and 2027 presidential primary. Expectedly, both sides are strategizing and mobilizing stakeholders ahead of the D-day
According to a highly placed party source, “everything is about the 2025 national convention and 2027 general elections. The calculation is that whoever is chairman now will have influence in the outcome of the next convention. And that outcome of that convention will equally influence the 2027 contest.
“Basically, the two camps are strategizing and mobilizing ahead of the NEC meeting, so that in the event they are to make nomination for national chairman, they want it from their various camps.”
Before the current push for Damagum to be replaced by a substantive national chairman, some stakeholders had canvassed for the sack of the NWC.
Sunday Sun gathered that the idea did not gain traction because many argued that the sacking of the entire NWC could create new challenges.
Sowunmi, in a recent interview, told our correspondent that what the party actually needed was a NWC, to charge of affairs in the opposition party.
According to him, “I think on the issue of the national chairman, most people are of the view that we actually do need a completely brand new Exco to work very hard for about a year before we get off season.
“But if that is not going to be practical, the next thing is filling all the vacancies that exist which includes finding a substantive national chairman.
“If you ask me, my honest and candid opinion, I think we are due for a comprehensive review of the party, with new executive from top to bottom.”
However, as the battle for the control of the soul of PDP rages on, there are suspicions that there might be a crack in the rank of the G-5 Governors.
Recently, the PDP National Vice Chairman, Southeast, Ali Odefa, led an onslaught against the National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, fuelling speculations that the G-5 may be falling apart, especially as both men are part of the G-5.
While Odefa owes allegiance to the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, the embattled PDP National Secretary is a loyalists of the FCT minister.
In the aftermath of the last Imo governorship election, which Anyanwu contested and lost, the Southeast PDP under Odefa’s leadership, had sought to replace the national secretary with the former National Youth Leader, Sunday Ude-Okoye.
According to the Southeast PDP leaders, Anyanwu having gone to contest for the Imo governorship poll can no longer return to his position as party scribe.
The zone in a communique at the end of the Southeast Zonal Executive Committee and party leaders meeting held in Enugu in February had warned that it would no longer tolerate the delay in the ratification of Udeh-Okoye as the National Secretary.
Among those at the meeting are Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State and PDP National Vice Chairman (South East), Chief Ali Odefa; Chairman, PDP Board of Trustees, Senator Adolphus Wabara, among others.
The standoff, political pundits believe
is taking a toll on the State Chapters of the PDP, whose ranks have depleted drastically in recent times.
A member of the House of Representatives, Joshua Gana, told Sunday Sun that the party would come out strong from the present challenges.
Gana, who is representing Mokwa Federal Constituency on the platform of the PDP, maintained that the opposition party remains the “best structured party in Africa and with various organs to address different areas and challenges.”
According to him, “we are growing as an opposition party as we had gotten used to being a ruling party that created a pattern. Things are changing and our party is only going through metamorphosis so that credible leadership from the North-central would rise to replace and succeed Sen. Iyorchia Ayu. So, give us time and resolutions from the clearly structured and stipulated steps in our party constitution would be followed and ratified at all levels soon.”
Furore over caretaker committees
Apart from the tussle over the national chairmanship of the PDP, the appointment of caretaker committees for state chapters have also kept the opposition party on the edge.
The PDP NWC, in a statement by Ologunagba, had penultimate Friday announced the appointment of caretaker committees for wards, local governments and state chapters, where the tenure of the executives have expired.
The affected states are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ekiti, Enugu and Gombe. Others are Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Niger, Ondo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
However, the list is already generating ripples in Rivers State with the governor, Siminalayi Fubara, dismissing the caretaker committee list for his state as fake.
Already, the furore over the caretaker committees list has snowballed into the National Assembly, resulting in a split in the PDP caucus.
Last Monday, the member representing Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency of Imo State, Ikenga Ugochinyere, pointedly accused the PDP NWC of alleged attempt to foist APC stalwart as caretaker committee members of the opposition party in Rivers and 10 other states.
Ugochinyere, who is the spokesman of the Coalition of Opposition Lawmakers, flanked by five other PDP lawmakers, claimed to be speaking for 60 other members of the opposition party in the Green Chamber.
He threatened that 60 lawmakers would severe ties with the PDP if the caretaker committees in the affected states are not reversed.
According to him, “this is a direct attempt to kill the PDP and ensure it goes into extinction. To make issues clearer, we are speaking on behalf of at least 60 lawmakers in the opposition lawmakers coalition in the National Assembly..
“We, therefore, declare that if the list in Rivers State PDP Caretaker Committee and the other 10 states were to stand, that the 60 lawmakers will resign from the party, severe all relationships with the party and seek new political alliances elsewhere.”
However, in a quick reaction, the minority leadership disowned the opposition coalition, saying that the group is not known to the parliament.
The minority caucus in a statement jointly signed by Kingsley Chinda, Ali Madaki, Ali Isa and George Ozodinobi, minority leader, deputy minority leader, minority whip and deputy minority whip respectively, declared that “the said coalition of lawmakers led by Hon Ikenga Ugochinyere is unknown to the parliament and both caucuses condemn in totality the absurd move, uncouth and unparliamentary language of the group.
“That the general public should take note that such a coalition is unknown to parliament and their demands do not represent that of the minority parties.”
However, the PDP is yet to react formally to thus new development. Repeated efforts made by our correspondent to speak with the National Publicity Secretary, on current developments in the party, was unsuccessful, as he did not respond to calls to his mobile phone.
Nevertheless, at the moment, all attentions in the party have been shifted to its upcoming NEC. Analysts say the outcome of Thursday’s NEC meeting would substantially determine the outlook of the PDP in the run-up to the 2027 polls.