By Uche Aguoru
It’s unfortunate the way the table has turned for the once biggest party in Africa the PDP, more worrisome is the fact that most people who benefitted hugely from the PDP during the period of its hold on power have either dumped the party or are shopping for a new political organization where they can continue to gain influence and political relevance.
The behaviour of an average Nigerian politician gives credence to the popular belief that in the Nigerian political environment, politics is not about societal development but more of personal aggrandizement and I have heard some well-respected Nigerian politicians describe political parties as not ideologically-based but a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to achieve political power.
The PDP as a political organization has had more than a fair share of being used and dumped at will for what appears to them like a greener end, Let me state that it is convenient for anyone to blame the former Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike for the role he played in the making of Tinubu’s presidency as against supporting his party to return to power.
Wike stood against his party and ensured that Atiku Abubakar lost the presidential election, if we all can condemn what Wike did and judge him harshly for the sabotage, what do we do to Atiku Abubakar for the Haram he committed against the PDP and Nigeria as a nation in 2015?
It’s important to remind those who may not know that the plot to wreck the PDP was hatched in 2014 with Atiku Abubakar as a willing tool in the hands of the opposition led by Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
While many may think that Wike refused to support Atiku because he (Wike) lost the PDP primaries, those holding onto that belief certainly do not understand the character of an average Nigerian politician.
The question you should ask is, why Wike refused to also support Atiku in 2019.
Let’s retrospectively assess the events that led to the Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan losing the election in 2015 and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s role in ensuring that the party he was instrumental to its formation, lost power.
The former Vice President and serial presidential aspirant, Atiku Abubakar have always nursed the ambition of ruling Nigeria through the PDP, having recorded failures in 2011 and knowing that the party will still hand the incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan the party ticket in 2014, out of desperation he went into conspiratorial alliance with the opposition against the PDP and made sure that the PDP lost the election in 2015, despite all attempts, entreaties, pleas, and promises made to make him change his mind, he was arrogantly adamant and at the end, the PDP lost the presidential election, he did not stop at that, he also sponsored a mole in the person of Alhaji Alimodu Sheriff, to take over as the interim chairman of the Party, a move made to finally bury the party if not for the likes of Barr. Nyesom Wike, Dave Umahi, Godswill Akpabio, Enyinnaya Abaribe, T.A. Orji, Ayodele Fayose, Bode George, and other governors that saw beyond Atiku’s evil game and went to battle to save the soul of the party with all the resources at their disposal.
Till date, PDP and Nigeria as a nation have yet to survive the effect of that conspiracy initiated by Atiku Abubakar in 2014
While Atiku was away and attending to his businesses from his base in Dubai, Wike provided the resources and leadership that sustained and kept the PDP alive only for Atiku to launch a return in 2019 with the hope of using the PDP to unseat a Buhari whom he assisted to power at the expense of his party, the PDP.
Having mastered Nigeria’s political behaviour with the realization that the PDP is hooked on transactional politics, in 2019 Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, threw in dollars and purchased the PDP presidential ticket from the party leadership led by Uche Secondus and lost the general election thereafter, that outing caused another round of crisis in PDP as many southeast and south South governors led by Wike, Dave Umahi, Ike Ekweremadu, Fayose, etc. refused to support his ambition.
For Atiku, the PDP ticket is a commodity that is up for grabs by the highest bidder, and each political season his immoderate ambition further divides and deepens the crisis in the party, he allows the likes of Wike, Bode George, Fayose, etc. to do the work of financing and keeping the party alive while he comes in after 4 years to purchase the presidential ticket, needless to repeat the already known story of how his last attempt claimed the head of another party chairman Sen. Iyorchia Ayu
Political sins are hardly forgiven, Wike, Bode George, Fayose, and the G-5 Governors only paid Atku back in his own coin, Atiku does not deserve to use the PDP, a party he helped to destroy to achieve his selfish ambition of becoming president, Atiku not only destroyed the PDP he destroyed Nigeria by assisting Muhamadu Buhari to power, Atiku does not deserve such honour. what if there was no Wike to protect, fund, and defend the PDP when Atiku plotted the party’s loss and destruction?
Any person in Nyesom Wike’s shoes will certainly feel hurt and demeaned watching Atiku reap from a party he defecated on, he has been a pillar in the PDP when the party was defeated and deserted and he’s one of the consistent members of the PDP that have never left the PDP to another party.
You may not like Wike’s face, it’s within your rights, you are free to hate his guts, I don’t think he is bothered about that, you may even choose to park out of or not to go to the FCT again because of Wike, that’s your choice. but one thing you cannot deny about Wike is his passion, commitment, love, and commendable efforts to ensure that PDP remains alive and potent.
PDP, though shedding a lot of weight, remains the most potent opposition to the ruling APC, the party is being restructured, it will bounce back, the leaking umbrella is being stitched and it will come back stronger, bigger, more colourful, rebranded, and better.
Aguoru
Is a public Affairs Analyst
