Corruption: The problem with the PDP
By Levi Obijiofor

EXACTLY eight days ago, the leadership of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) announced to the nation that it had expelled two troublesome members of the party in Anambra State, namely the state governor Chris Ngige and his political nightmare Chris Uba. The sacking of Ngige and Uba by the PDP marked the end (or so it may appear) of the long-drawn political arm-wrestling between two political enemies sworn to mutual destruction and the derailment of official government business in the state. For nearly 20 months the people of Anambra State, the direct victims of the entire saga, were imprisoned metaphorically by the tangled business disagreement between Ngige and Uba. That indecent business deal went burst on 10 July 2003.

At the end of the meeting of the national executive committee of the PDP at which wide ranging decisions were made last week, journalists asked Vincent Ogbulafor, the garrulous secretary of the party, to outline the cardinal sins committed by Ngige and Uba. Like an automated machine, Ogbulafor wrapped up the sins in 12 words: "It is disrespect for the party's constitution, disobedience to the party's constitution." These were bogus, indeed imprecise words. Without a clear and specific statement on the offences committed by Ngige and Uba, Ogbulafor implied that journalists were free to attach to his tricky words any meanings they could conjure. It was like the PDP couldn't find any acceptable excuse for hanging Ngige and his tormentor Uba. The party really didn't need to sweat to manufacture reasons in order to dismiss Ngige and Uba. On hindsight, Ngige and Uba had nailed their political coffins when they took their quarrel before President Olusegun Obasanjo and confessed how they rigged, manipulated and messed up the 2003 governorship election in Anambra State.
Late last year, Obasanjo, by his own admission, narrated how Uba, the infantile godfather of Anambra politics, told him that he (Uba) single-handedly rigged the Anambra election in favour of the PDP. To the shock of the nation, Obasanjo, the champion and symbol of anti-corruption crusade in Nigeria, did nothing. He merely ordered his guests (Uba and Ngige) out of the president's residence. However, Obasanjo's inability and refusal to order the men arrested and prosecuted for confessing to a high crime blew the mask off Obasanjo's anti-corruption fa?ade. Up till today, Obasanjo's confessions still ring loud and beyond Nigeria's borders. A president who swore to defend the country's constitution turned his face away when two men told him face-to-face they had participated in shredding Nigeria's constitution and the electoral laws. Can hypocrisy appear in any better form?
Last year I commented forcefully on Obasanjo's hypocritical style of government, following the free-for-all destruction of lives and property by hoodlums in Anambra in full view and acquiescence of a corrupt police force. My view then was, and still is, that: "It is Obasanjo's signature style of leadership: keep quiet as fire rages in different parts of the country and then send in armed soldiers or police to restore order after the damage has been done. Obasanjo trialed this sinister policy in Kano and Kaduna states many times in the past four years. He re-tested the policy in Plateau State and he has just implemented it in full in Anambra. What manner of president do we have? A president who takes sides in political disputes? A president who allows an unruly friend to disobey the laws of the country?"
Last week the PDP leadership rose from its meeting (also attended by Obasanjo) radiating self-satisfaction. In the view of the party leaders, two sore thumbs (Ngige and Uba) had been successfully excised from the PDP's hands. The party's argument would have been justified in this manner: it is better to go to heaven with an incomplete set of thumbs than to burn in hell fire with all thumbs intact. Nowhere in the list of prime sins committed by Ngige and Uba did any of the PDP leaders mention the rigging of elections in Anambra State by Uba and Ngige. Ogbulafor was clever enough to avoid that bit when he addressed journalists on Thursday last week. It would have been difficult and embarrassing to explain why the PDP overlooked the high crimes committed by Uba and Ngige against the Nigerian nation and the electoral laws. The journalists who attended Ogbulafor's briefing should have done a better job of arming themselves with more probing questions.

In his sanctimonious address to the executive meeting last week, newly crowned chairman Ahmadu Ali invoked the metaphor of healing a wound. He said: "We are called to clear long standing party issues which have held the party from moving forward. You cannot treat an open wound when there is a shrapnel. Let us not shirk our responsibilities. We have rules and guidelines in our constitution. We shall not be afraid to take decisions. No matter how long it will take, it is perfect, it is perfect." Unfortunately, despite the banishment of Ngige and Uba, there is still a huge shrapnel in the wound which the PDP inflicted on the nation and on its self.

The PDP leaders have refused to address the question of legitimacy - whether or not the party won the 2003 governorship election in Anambra State in a fair and just manner. Although Ahmadu Ali claimed in his address quoted above that "it is perfect, it is perfect", the PDP leaders' decisions last week were neither "perfect" nor commendable. To make the action "perfect", the PDP leaders would need to admit openly that the party did not win the governorship election in Anambra. This should not be a difficult task. The party's former favoured son Uba had already made it easier for the PDP by confessing to rigging the governorship election in the state. The second "perfect" action to be taken by the PDP would be to order the arrest and prosecution of Uba and Ngige for rigging the election in Anambra. Anything less is sheer hypocrisy.

As further evidence that corruption is rife within the top ranks of the PDP leadership, a report submitted by the Olagunsoye Oyinlola Panel had recommended further investigation of some members of the party's national working committee for improper conduct in the political crises in Anambra State. Although the party officials identified in the report were yet to be given an opportunity to defend themselves, the report was as pointedly damning and critical as you can get. The panel reported: "Some members of the National Working Committee of the party are equally guilty of inability to act swiftly, dispassionately and sincerely, owing to divergent interests in the matter. For instance, some members of the National Working Committee were accused of receiving financial inducements to pervert the course of justice in the Anambra saga." This is an act of self-flagellation but it is not something you find often within the perverted politics of the PDP leadership.

The PDP is like a terminally ill patient who appears normal outside but inside is slowing succumbing to the devastating effects of a deadly virus. The party will continue to go down the path of infamy as long as the leaders continue to run around in circles with blinkers on their faces. Anti-corruption crusade cannot take hold in the PDP simply because it is corruption that feeds and sustains some key members of the party.