Obasanjo’s admonition to PDP

In an apparent endorsement of the result of the February 23, 2019 presidential election, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has advised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to purge itself of “bad eggs and hypocrites, who lack commitment” to return the opposition party to its lost glory.

The 2019 presidential election was won by incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who defeated his closest rival of the PDP, former vice-president Atiku Abubakar.

Although Atiku and his party have disputed the election result, describing it as flawed with ‘gross irregularities’, Obasanjo’s recent admonition seems be a tacit affirmation of Buhari’s reelection while tracing the defeat of the PDP presidential candidate to internal party disorder, acrimony and treachery.

Obasanjo, who ruled Nigeria for eight years on the return of democracy in 1999 to 2007, said the purging exercise would put the party on a higher pedestal to scout for those “critical mass of committed people who would be ready to stand with the party come rain, come shine.

” Obasanjo, who gave the advice Sunday evening, when South-west PDP leaders led by the party’s national vice-chairman (South-west), Dr Eddy Olafeso, visited him at his penthouse residence in Abeokuta, Ogun state, lamented that many of the PDP leaders were still preoccupied with what matters to “their pockets and stomachs,” and wondered why some of them left the party while others lost hope the moment the results of 2019 presidential elections were announced.

He told the delegation that the “Nigerian situation demands a vibrant voice and opposition in PDP to engender a virile democracy,” decrying “the failure of leadership in the country,” saying “Nigeria can’t move forward if we continue the way we are.”

“I knew PDP would lose elections in 2015 because it was clear. And I knew PDP will need to be re-built after losing the elections. You need what I call critical mass of committed people, and come rain, come shine they are committed. With that you can make Nigeria better. You see people’s faces beautiful, but you don’t know what each person harbours inside of him.

If you discover a bad egg, remove such a person. And if such person has learnt his or her lessons there can still be room to accommodate the person. “Politically speaking, you can’t be my friend if you don’t buy into the Nigeria’s project. For me, till death, I will continue to push for a better Nigeria,” he said.

Interestingly, at the height of its 16 years hold on the levers of the nation’s political power, PDP prided itself as the largest political party in Africa, an appellation that was a clear misnomer, as it had no empirical evidence or statistical basis.

The party also boasted that it would rule for 60 years, notwithstanding its poor performance in government. At the time, some analysts and political scientists interpreted the 60 years power dominance claim as merely metaphorical, as the party was poised to rule for eternity; this was predicated on indicators that Nigeria was heading towards a one party state with no vibrant or formidable opposition.

However, the PDP’s 60-year claim was short lived with the emergence of the APC, which fielded the irrepressible Buhari (highly reputed for his integrity and incorruptibility) as its presidential candidate in the 2015 general elections. Buhari polled 15, 424, 921 votes to emerge top ahead of his main rival, the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP with12, 853, 162.

The fall of the PDP was attributed mainly to poor governance characterised by unbridled corruption including mass looting of public treasury; high insecurity, particularly the deadly Boko Haram insurgency; mismanagement of the economy and a horde of other governance failures.

This had created despondency among the Nigerian populace, who yearned for a change of the status quo that was offered by the Buhari-led APC.

Many stakeholders in the Nigerian project had described PDP’s 16 years rule as the years of the locusts. The level of corruption perpetrated by the PDP government was vividly captured recently by Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed. “…we released what some people call a bombshell, that between 2006 and 2013, just 55 people allegedly stole a total of N1.34 trillion, an amount that is more than one quarter of the 2015 national budget”.

This gory picture of the 16 years of PDP rule probably explains why the party lost his grip on power. However, it does appear that the party has learnt very little from its past pitfalls like lack of internal party democracy, imposition of candidates and corrupting the electoral system which pitched the Nigeria electorate against it in 2015 and 2019 presidential elections which were squarely won by APC’s President Buhari.

We, therefore, urge the PDP to make hay in heeding the advice of Obasanjo, who as a founding member of the party, its pioneer president for eight years and a member of its inner causes. should know where the ‘shoe pinches.’

 It will be a disservice to the evolution of Nigeria’s democracy if PDP fails to put its act together and offers Nigerians a formidable opposition platform that could wrestle power in 2023.

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