Nothing unsettles a political party like when a major player defects from its fold to another rival political party not to talk of when three of such major players defect in a space of three months.
This is the position the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) currently finds itself ahead of the 2023 general election. Whilst the party is trying to rebuild from scratch by mending fences to wrest power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), some of its governors felt the party has not done much work to guarantee them a second term or a seat in the Senate.
In fact, PDP has not forgotten in a hurry its bitter experience when five serving governors defected to APC in November 2013.
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Considered a major political realignment by analysts in the country, the then governors of Rivers State, Chibuike Amaechi; Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko; Kano State, Rabi’u Kwankwaso; Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako; and Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed decamped to APC.
Similarly, a number of senators and members of House of Representatives followed suit.
In Kwara State, for instance, its governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed; his predecessor and serving senator then, Bukola Saraki; all the council chairmen in Kwara, and majority of state and federal lawmakers in the state left for the APC.
The scenario then is not too different from what is happening now with the defection of Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, Ben Ayade of Cross River State and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State.
In most cases, once a governor has defected, federal and state lawmakers are likely to follow suit. In Zamfara State, two senators have joined Matawalle in APC. They are: Sahabi Ya’u (Zamfara North) and Lawali Anka (Zamfara West).
In their separate letters to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, the lawmakers attributed their resignation from the opposition to internal crisis, tyranny and leadership failure within the party.
At the moment, the party has only one governor each in North-West (Sokoto), North-Central (Benue) and South-West (Oyo). The party controls two states in the North-East (Bauchi and Taraba) and two states in the South-East (Enugu and Abia) while five states in South-South (Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Edo) are firmly under its control.
If there is one aim the PDP wants to achieve come 2023, it is to take power back from APC at the centre as well as some states where it has lost ground.
Having ruled the country for 16 years, the party never thought it could find itself playing the role of an opposition and being an opposition party over the last six years, PDP has struggled to keep the ruling party on its toes.
At this time of socio-economic instability in the country, Nigerians need a vibrant opposition party that will keep the ruling party in check in terms of fulfilling their promises to the people. It is said that “Democracy ceases to be when one party rules and none to challenge its actions and policies.”
Analysts said that PDP needs a credible and reliable strategy to reinvent itself with a solid think tank.
Nigeria’s democracy needs a purposeful, knowledge-based and credible opposition.
Aware that the only way it can get the mandate of the people back was to rise up to the occasion as an opposition party, some party stalwart have been making frantic move in this regard.
The National Vice Chairman South-South of the party, Dan Orbih, has said that the time is rife for the party to begin to play its role as a party in opposition when he led the South-South party executive on a courtesy visit to Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa in Asaba.
According to Orbih, “We must start playing our role as a party in opposition. We are the hope of our people. About few days ago, the Senate approved another $6.1 billion loan, about N2.34 trillion.
“The conscious policy of the FGN to mortgage our future must stop. These loans are not deployed for economic productive ventures but for railway lines from Kastina to Niger.”
“What we spend in combating herdsmen atrocities and kidnapping if deployed in the Agricultural sector can make Nigeria provide enough food for the whole of Africa,” he further said.
According to him, “What a country so blessed but grossly mismanaged? When will they stop borrowing? Let our members in the National Assembly speak out and express our party’s stand on these loans.
“Unfortunately, the committee in charge of loans has a PDP member as Chairman. How do people see us when we turn around to criticise the loans?”
Since it found itself in an unfamiliar terrain, the party has been trying to build bridges of friendship and acceptability by setting up a national reconciliation and strategy committee led by former Senate President, Bukola Saraki in November 2020.
The six-member committee include: a former Gombe State governor, Hassan Dankwambo; former House minority leader, Mulikat Akande; former Cross River State governor, Liyel Imoke; serving senator and former Katsina State governor, Ibrahim Shema and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Pius Anyim.
The committee has met major stakeholders in the party such as former President Goodluck Jonathan, serving governors and members of the National Working Committee (NWC) to forge a common front as a united party.
The PDP Governors have been meeting to see how the party can become a better alternative come 2023.
At a recent meeting in Makurdi, Governor Samuel Ortom said the focus of the meeting was to boost the confidence of Nigerians in the party as better alternative to the ruling APC.
“This is a family meeting for us to reason together in order to make our party more vibrant because Nigerians are waiting for us to take over the mantle of leadership at the centre in 2023,” Ortom said.
