Democracy, Political Parties And The People's Democratic Party

By Reuben Abati

The reform that is now being proposed in the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the self-styled Africa's biggest political party and the most dominant political party in Nigeria's Fourth Republic is long overdue. Since 1999, the PDP has been running our affairs at all levels of government but it is also a party that is totally lacking in internal democracy; under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, that party became too much of a reflection of the Nigerian dilemma rather than an institution for moral, social and political regeneration. Nigerians were so frustrated with the PDP that they invented all kinds of descriptive extensions of its acronym to express their frustrations and disgust: Pin-Di-Pin (credited to the late Chief Bola Ige), People Deceiving People (PDP), People Destroying Party (PDP), Papa Deceive Pickin (PDP), Poverty Distributing Party, Power Destroys Permanently etc.

How a party so thoroughly despised still managed to win elections in 2003 and 2007, and the people accepted this is one of the sorry points of the Nigerian political process. However, under President Umaru Musa Yar'adua and a new Chairman of the party, Vincent Ogbulafor, the PDP has been talking about reforms. The new men in the party hierarchy have taken their cue from the Reconciliation Committeee that was set up under General Olusegun Obasanjo and former Board of Trustees Chairman, Tony Anenih, and led by former Vice President Dr Alex Ekwueme. In April 2008, the Ekwueme Committee and the National Executive Council of the party had met to resolve that the Constitution of the party should be amended to eliminate some of the mischiefs that had been introduced into it, specifically Article 12:77 which was amended at a November 2006 Convention making Obasanjo, Chairman of the party's Board of Trustees (BoT) and reserving that position exclusively for former Presidents on the platform of the party.

Within the purview of this amendment, the Chairman of the party's BoT was further granted executive powers and such influence that would enable him to dictate to a sitting President. It was obvious that through this amendment to the party's Constitution which was enthusiastically supported by the party hierarchy and the rank and file, President Obasanjo was seeking a third term through the back door. And everyone at the party Convention readily supported the amendment because it would have been suicidal not to do so. The media had cried wolf at the time trying to draw attention to the descent into dictatorship in the PDP and Obasanjo's vaulting ambition. But no one was willing to listen.

This week, that shennaigan was reversed, in principle, with the annoucement that the National Excutive Council and the National Working Committee of the party will accept the Ekwueme committtee's recommendation to reverrt to the status quo ante bellum, before 2006, that is the 2001 Constitution of the PDP which left the position of the BoT Chairman open to all members of the Board of Trustees, and made it an advisory position, rather than a father-of-the-party-for-life position which the triumphant Obasanjo crowd which, by 2006, had succeeded in eliminating the original leaders of the party, smuggled into it.

In its statements on Tuesday, the National Working Committee of the Party further noted that the party is interested in returing to its original values and principles. "The era of arbitrariness... is over", said the party. There was also some talk about reconciliation and the re-integration of all aggrieved members into the fold. In addition, the party leadership resolved that state governors will no longer occupy the position of party leaders in their states, lording it over every one else and acting like absolute dictators. "A special National Convention of the Party shall hold in the first quarter of 2009 to consider these constitutional amendment proposals," the party declared.

There is no doubting the fact that the PDP is a party in need of renewal and reform. The Constitutional amendment proposals are in order. It was wrong in the first place to have allowed former President Obasanjo to hijack the party. He was originally an outsider to the party, indeed a non-politician, but the moment he became President in 1999, it became clear to him that he needed to transform himself into a partisan politcian and control the party machinery. The only way he could do this was to get rid of those who had formed the party and brought him in as a candidate. And being President, with wide executive powers, Obasanjo was in a position to do as he wished. His list of victims is long, made up principally of those who dared to challenge his methods and ambition.

But Obasanjo was not the only culprit; in the states, the governors behaved exactly the same way and turned themselves into demi-gods. It was not enough to be Governors serving the people, their Excellencies became small orisas, terrorising other members of the party and turning the party into their own mirrors. It was both the party and the democratic process that suffered in consequence. The failure that Nigerians recorded in eight years (1999 - 2007) stemmed from the failure of the dominant PDP as a political party. Obasanjo and his foot-soldiers fighting their totalitarian wars within the PDP and the state Governors engaged in a tussle for control in the states, robbed Nigerians of an opportunity for good governance. The history of this is so recent it needs no further repetition: readers will recall the tension in Anambra, Edo, Ekiti, Oyo, Adamawa, Plateau and other states during the period being referred to. The delivery of anti-democracy by the People's Democratic Party virtually sabotaged the national interest as Nigerians witnessed tbe brazen wastage of eight years of their lives.

The struggle for power in the states was particularly fierce. Every Governor wanted to be the party leader in his state, but in some of those other states, the Governor had to deal with the presence of Godfathers and political IOUs which he had promised to pay but which he no longer wanted to pay and in Oyo, Anambra, and Abia states, we saw how this caused so much anarchy. Where the Governors succeded in silencing their Godfathers ( in some cases literally) or managed to buy them out or kept them in control, those Governors became overlords, supreme devils at work before whom everybody kow-towed including civil servants and even the legislators whose primary job is to oversee the executive. Till date, Speakers of the state Houses of Assembly join the Governor's convoy as errand boys and refer to him as their leader. The decision of the PDP NEC to separate the two roles would be most welcome; hopefully it will eliminate the menace of Godfathers and factional Congresses (?).

What is being proposed is a coup against Obasanjo aside from being a comment on human nature. Present at the announcement of the proposed amendments and most vocal in hailing them have been Obasanjo's former "victims" - including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Masari, former Senate Presidents Anyim O. Anyim and Ken Nnamani, and former Party Chairman, Barnabas Gemade and others. Chief Anthony Anenih, Professor Jerry Gana and Hon. Ghali Na'�bba should also be happy. But there is a moral crisis within the PDP. The proposed amendment of the party's Constitution should not just stop at the level of a coup, at the level of an attempt to cut Obasanjo down to size, it must serve as an opportunity for a transformation of the PDP into a political party of essence. Many of those who are now happy that Obasanjo and the governors are about to be reduced to size were in fact supportive of the seizure of the party by the former President and the Governors. They are singing a new tune only because that is what President Umaru Yar'�dua wants or what they think he wants. If tomorrow the man in the saddle turns in another direction, they would also all change direction. When a few persons, including Vice President Atiku and his friends stood up against Obasanjo, there were so many PDP leaders who stood aloof or even rode on the back of the crisis to Presidential favour. The PDP can only be taken seriously when it becomes a party of decent men and women, not opportunists without a soul.

By seeking to clip the wings of the President, Governors and other political office holders within the party, what the PDP is actually hinting at is a change of the system of government, and it is an option that is worth pursuing. Perhaps what would be best for this country is a Parliamentary system of government under which elected representatives are no more than party men and representatives of the people, and the Prime Minister is only first among equals. The Presidential system of Government creates gods out of mere mortals. In a society such as this, where values are in disarray and institutions are putative, this is bound to cause problems. Ours is also a system that places too much emphasis on money and patronage. A parliamentary system would place greater emphasis on the party and its individuality, and strengthen the electorate's capacity for choice, and the possible emergence of a virile opposition. The tragedy of the past nine years is that our Presidential-style "�xecutive" Governors and Presidents are so powerful that they can make and unmake without recourse to anybody. They have direct access to the treasury and can distribute money as they wish.

In a country where hunger walks on stilts and men of honour are in short supply, party leaders, lawmakers, judges and every other stakeholder are at risk in the presence of an over-powerful executive who has the means to compromise his potential auditors. Even the opposition can be bought under this scenario, and we have seen that happen in the last nine years. The PDP wants to separate the office of President and leader of the party, and the office of the Governor and the leader of the party at the state level, but in principle, that separation had existed (until Obasanjo fused the two in 2006), but even at that time, the so-called party leaders compromised themselves because they willingly submitted to the will of the man in office, in exchange for the privilege to recommend contractors for jobs, or their own relations for political appointments or for direct personal benefits. If the proposed Constitutional amendments would work, the PDP hierarchy must change its attitude to politics and public service. A Ghana-Must-Go mentality pervades that party and it is what is responsible for the corrosion of its so-called original values and principles. What those values and principles are, we really do not know. What is the ideology of the PDP?

The PDP Convention at which the proposed amendments will be ratified is scheduled for the first quarter of 2009. In effect, former President Olusegun Obsanjo would still serve as Chairman of the party BoT till that moment, and already Obasnajo and his supporters are reportedly trying to annul the decision of the party NWC on this matter. The PDP faces a test of integrity. Before now, the former President had boasted arrogantly that the plan to remove him as BoT Chairman of the PDP is a joke. He should be made to realise that the joke is actually on him; he is the butt of it. This is very important. One ironic fact though is that it is under President �maru Yar'�dua, the principal beneficiary of Obasanjo's reign of terror in the PDP that questions are now being asked about dictatorship within the party. President Yar'�dua is faced with a double-edged sword, but he and the reformers should be more committed to democracy and the common good. On the moral and spiritual plane, it looks like Obasanjo is learning his lessons the very hard way. And indeed, he deserves what he is getting.

But political pary reform, asumming that the PDP leaders are in any way sincere, should not be limited to the PDP alone. It is the entire political party system in Nigeria that is in need of reform. The same patterns of internal arbitrariness and authoritarianism that have reduced the PDP to a party of warlords have been observed in the other political parties. The Alliance for Democracy (AD), the party that controlled six states in the South West between 1999 and 2003 and lost all, failed for this very reason. The Action Congress which rose out of its ashes is sadly not exactly an improvement on the old model. APGA, the People's Progressive Alliance (PPA) and all the other smaller parties including the ones that were created for the mere purposes of fund-raising are no better than personality cults. Nigerians deserve something better and it is to that task, encouraging the emergence and growth of a true political party system that the Yar'�dua government should direct its attention beyond the crisis within the PDP.

Robot  Villager

# 1 Democracy, Political Parties And The People's Democratic Party By Reube...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 10.08.2008 11:57

tonyben33  Villager

# 2 PDP is the haven of political thieves in Nigeria.Almost all the ex-public office holders being prosecuted for corruption by EFCC belong to the party. Imoke and Agagu that gave us darkness belong to the party.There is nothing democratic about a political party that is made up of 90% of the most corrupt nigerians in modern history. Posted by tonyben33| 10.08.2008 17:56