With 446 days to the 2019 general elections, the battle for who emerges national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be tough. However, not many political pundits anticipated that it would get this fierce as the December 9 national elective convention of the main opposition party approaches.
The recent peace accord signed by seven of the eight aspirants has been threatened by evolving controversies ranging from allegations of partisanship, impunity and imposition against the national leadership of the party to counter accusations by aspirants.
The aspirants in the contest are former deputy national chairman of the party, Bode George; former Minister of Education, Tunde Adeniran; media mogul Raymond Dokpesi; former PDP governorship aspirant in Lagos State, Jimi Agbaje; ex-governor of Oyo State Rashidi Ladoja; former deputy national chairman, Uche Secondus; former governor of Ogun State, Gbenga Daniel and former Minister of Youths and Sports, Taoheed Adedoja.
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All but George have signed the peace accord titled ‘National Chairmanship Aspirants Accord on Prevention of Violence and Acceptance of Election Result at the Elective National Convention’, much to the relief of the party’s leadership and delight of the party faithful.
According to the pact, the aspirants agreed to “Support whoever emerges amongst us as the National Chairman of our great party as long as the process is transparent, free and fair following the provisions of the Constitution of the Party and guidelines of the elective National Convention.
“No aspirant shall leave the party or encourage his or her supporters, promoters etc to do so, as a result of the outcome of the National Chairmanship Election at the elective National Convention.
“Any breach of the 2015 zero expenditure policy of the party, which prohibits the use of monetary inducement including lodging of delegates and providing money for votes, shall not be tolerated in the 2017 National Elective Convention and shall be a ground for disqualification on or before the 9th December 2017.
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“Any aspirant/sponsor/supporter/financier, proven to have done anything contrary to the agreements reached herein and in circumstances that suggest the knowledge of the undersigned persons shall be disqualified from contesting the National Chairmanship election.
“Solemnly abide by and uphold the tenets of this National Chairmanship Election according to which we hereby voluntarily subscribe”.
They also vowed to be civil in the campaign and agreed to do away with hate statements, pronouncements, declarations, threats or “speeches that have the capacity to incite any form of violence, before, during and after the national convention of the party.”
Chairman of the national caretaker committee party, Ahmed Makarfi, who midwifed the signing process, admitted that the accord was the brainchild of the aspirants and assured that none of them will be excluded from contesting the chairmanship election.
“We didn’t suggest anything to you”, he said, adding “You met and showed it to us and all we did was thank you for statesmanship.”
With the signing of the pact, hopes were high that a rancour-free convention was in the offing. But that was merely wishful thinking as events in the party have shown.
Preparations for the conduct of ward congresses to elect delegates to the national convention set the party on a fresh collision course. Amid allegations that Makarfi is working for the imposition of an aspirant, Adeniran threatened to pull out of the peace pact, while George called for his resignation.
Adeniran accused the party’s leadership of aiding moves to impose Secondus on the party ahead of the December 9 national convention.
Specifically, he accused the Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee (NCC) of tilting the composition of ward and congress committees in favour of loyalists of Secondus.
Speaking through the Director-General of his Campaign Organisation, Shehu Gabam, Adeniran further threatened to pull out of the peace accord signed by the contenders in the race in the face of the unfolding events.
“There is lopsidedness in the composition of the list of the ad-hoc committee. A particular state has members in that list and some of them are the leading campaigners for Secondus.
“We as campaign organisation were not consulted to bring one or two persons and I am sure other aspirants were not consulted too.
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“So we find it very funny and realised that the spirit behind the signing of the MoU was not respected by the party itself, not the aspirants. This is not a very good spirit, this is not good leadership. Nobody has a monopoly of determining issues. We don’t want to be seen as overheating the system but the party should be seen to be providing cohesive and strong leadership.”
According to Gabam, “From Rivers State, they have Senator George Sekibo, Austin Okpara, ThankGod Danagogo, Kenneth Ubani and in all this, you can see Emeka Ihedioha leading the campaign for Secondus on that ad-hoc committee list that was constituted. Now you have just one chairmanship aspirant having his men deeply entrenched in a system that would determine how the delegates will emerge.
“This is an indirect way of shortchanging other aspirants and this is not good for the party. Anyway, we were not part of it, this is what the party did and published on their own.”
He further said that “The party should provide an equal base for all aspirants and I want to say that we disagree with the composition of this list.
“If there is an attempt to derail commitment to a transparent convention, then we will not stand by that MOU we signed”.
He recalled that they warned against the impunity and imposition which led to the emergence of Ali Modu Sheriff and culminated in a 14-month long crisis that almost crumbled the party.
He warned: “They are at it again and we are warning them again but they will not listen again. We are out to tell that nobody has the monopoly of knowledge on issues, if the national convention is manipulated by any form, we will not allow it stand, and I am not in this race to be defeated stupidly.
“They have been boasting around that they have unity list which they are working with and that with the unity list they have won the national convention yet to be conducted.”
On his part, George called for the resignation of Makarfi ahead of the party’s national convention.
George, who spoke through the Director-General of his campaign organisation, Ibrahim Aliu, added that an alleged 2019 presidential ambition of Makarfi has affected his ability to conduct free, fair and transparent convention.
He said: “Apparently spurred by personal ambition of contesting for the Presidential office in 2019, Makarfi is brazenly allying with a particular aspirant in the South-South to deliberately distort the process, muddle equity and invariably destroy the democratic process for transient personal gains.
“Makarfi’s action, to put it mildly, is sickening, untoward, blatantly tendentious, totally stripped of the typical moral high ground that often defines a well-meaning, God-fearing arbitrating leadership.
“Everywhere you look, Makarfi is planting the agents of his favourite South-South candidate to stage-manage warped and skewed congresses in an undisguised mockery of all the normative patterns of our founding fathers whose enduring forte about equity, justice and fairness is now being flung into the gutter.
“In a way, Makarfi is evidently resolved to repeat the farcical malady that characterised the debacle in Port Harcourt last year. We have equally resolved that we will not be led along this ruinous path again. Never!
“For the sake of propriety, for the sake of all that is good and meaningful, for the sake of equitable balance and moral appropriateness, we strongly advise Senator Makarfi to resign his position forthwith because he has been severely compromised. He can no longer play the role of a neutral arbiter who stands far above the fray. He is already tarred and soiled in the muddy waters of partisan prejudice.
“Makarfi should now do the most honourable thing by walking away and face his ambition squarely. He cannot use a privilege non-elective position to wangle undue advantages to his own side. It is patently unacceptable.”
Similarly, the senator representing Ogun East, Buruji Kashamu, also accused Makarfi of being bias in the conduct of the forthcoming congress because of his 2019 presidential ambition.
But the aspirant in the eye of the storm, Secondus, has been fighting back, trying to disclaim insinuations that he is an anointed candidate of the party leadership and by extension the governors.
Secondus said he is not the candidate of Makarfi. While speaking at the party national secretariat in Abuja after submitting his nomination form, also stressed that at no time was the national chairmanship position micro-zoned to South West geo-political zone by stakeholders from the zone.
He said: “Makarfi is not paving way for my emergence. There is no truth to that statement. I have been going around quietly and canvassing for votes. I have not held any meeting with Makarfi and he has not endorsed me. There was no time in this time that the office (national chairmanship) was micro zoned.”
He noted that the position was zoned to the 17 states in South, same way presidential ticket of the PDP for 2019 polls was zoned to the 19 states in the North, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He further clarified that he didn’t bother to contest for national chairman at the botched national convention last year in Port Harcourt, because of party leaders from the South micro-zoned it to the South-west.
“The office of national chairman was zoned to 17 southern states of the federation. President zoned to 19 states. Let’s not dwell on misinterpretation: aspirants know this unless they want to be mischievous.”
He explained that he had been a party man from the very beginning and that he was the only aspirant who has had the privilege of serving the party at the highest level as acting national chairman.
Secondus said he consulted with party elders in his state and his zone as well as other zones and came to the conclusion that he had “what it takes to restore the party to its pride of place especially as Nigeria approaches another election cycle in 2019.”
While Makarfi has denied claims of nursing a presidential ambition, the party was forced to break its silence on the issue as the allegations got hotter and messier.
Dayo Adeyeye, national publicity secretary of the party, while briefing the press denied that the national caretaker committee took nominations from any aspirant to serve as members in committees forward congress.
Reacting to the alleged ambition of Makarfi, Adeyeye said: “As for the issue of whether Senator Makarfi has the presidential ambition or not, we are not aware of that. The national caretaker committee is not aware of that and we have not opened the floodgate for people to begin to aspire to a position of the president. INEC has not even released timetable.
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“I don’t know if they have released any timetable for the presidential election. We in the PDP are concerned now in putting in place a new leadership for the party which we hope will come up or emerge latest by December 9 or 10. That is our preoccupation at the national caretaker committee”, he said.
He further denied that the membership of committees supervising the congresses in respective states were nominations from aspirants candidate.
Adding that the committee was compiled from states and other organs of the party, he said: “We wish to remind all that it’s the State Chapters that actually conduct congresses. The Committees only compile the results and attend to Appeals after which they file their reports to the Party Headquarters.
“When all reports are filed by the Committees, we shall summon the States Chairmen to come with their copies and reconfirm the results at a date to be fixed and all bonafide interest groups will be welcomed to witness it. This is to reassure everybody that validly elected delegates list is not tampered with.
“Commenting specifically on the issues raised by Bode George through his Director-General and Tunde Adeniran, we wish to state that Bode George assertions were wild and not specific.
“However, Adeniran’s letter specifically mentioned five names out of about 216 names. While assuring him that we shall pay special attention to the places they were posted to, but we did not and could not interview the members to know their leanings before calling on them to serve. It’s most likely that some of the remaining 211 members are aligned to some other persons seeking elective offices including himself and Bode George.
“It pains us that on the one hand, George who is fully aware of the pains we are still going through in Lagos to fairly and equitably carry everybody on board to the extent that we are being accused by others as siding with him is the same person accusing us of impunity.
“On the preparations for the Convention, we have asked Chairmanship aspirants to make input so that they have their eyes and ears in each Committee. It was only Chief Bode George that did not attend the meeting we had with the aspirants.”
The PDP spokesman added that the party’s leadership cannot enforce the peace accord entered into by the national chairmanship aspirants.
He, however, expressed frustration over the party’s inability to further sanction Senator Kashamu, who has become a thorn in the flesh of Makarfi over his handling of party affairs.
As the race intensifies, party watchers believe that the battle would only get messier, as there are strong indications of a parallel national convention.
Notwithstanding, the anticipation by most party members and political commentators is that the party holds a free, fair and credible exercise, wean itself off internal wrangling and be in a position to play its role as a viable opposition party in the country.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
