PDP AND THE BURDEN OF JONATHAN'S PRESIDENCY

Chairman, DAAR Communications Plc, owners of AIT, Ray power FM, Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, recently jolted the political turf when he alleged that the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP), made a mistake by fielding former President Goodluck Jonathan as its presidential candidate in the last elections. Coming from one of the major conveners of the South-South political movement, and the region that produces the nation's wealth, his statement immediately aroused reactions frompolitical gladiators.

Among those that condemned his opinion were former presidential spokesman, Dr. Doyin Okupe,and PDP spokesman, Olisah Metuh, forcing Dokpesi to clarify that his statement was twisted out of context by the opposition. According to him, he directed the statement at the lower rung of the PDP political spectrum,whom he accused of fielding unpopular candidates,hence the current reversal of the party's fortune from the ruling to opposition party.

Dokpesi’s comment about Jonathan's unpopularity and unsuitability as presidential candidate in 2015, reiterates a familiar terrain that had been threaded five years ago by former Governor of Delta State James Ibori. Now serving a jail term in UK prison, Ibori had opposed Jonathan's candidature in 2010 on the ground that it was against the grand strategy of the PDP to return power to the north, after residing for eight years in the south,with Olusegun Obasanjo as the custodian. He was rebuffed and the comment drew the ire and bile of the ‘principalities and powers’ in Aso Rock villa at that time.

Ibori had maintained that his perceived opposition was in line with the well-established PDP power-rotation principle that held the party together like glue. He added that his comment was not personal, but an altruistic commitment by a party loyalist to the sustenance of the PDP as the ruling party. But his plea, as it were,fell on deaf ears.

Now,I know that some antagonists would argue that Ibori confessed to the crime of money laundering in the UK,hence he is in incarceration. But we are all aware of the circumstances under which he did. His entire family; sister,wife,daughter’s mother and lawyer were encircled and jailed, compelling him to capitulate.

Strangely, Nigeria is wired in such a way that when the authority decides to ‘nail’ a public officer,there is hardly any escape from being found guilty of malfeasance. On the other hand, if a person is enjoying the goodwill of government in power, he or she would be accommodated like a blue-eye prince and could therefore get away with murder, with the authorities looking the other way.

Take for instance the issue of the celebrated Halliburton,Siemens and other sundry multi-million dollars allegations of corruption involving former top Nigerian political office holders. The corruption saga had earned foreigners involved in the said crimes prison terms, while their Nigerian counterparts are yet to be made to face the consequences.This is simply because the indicted Nigerian leaders are in the correct political camp and as such arraigning them would rock Nigeria’s boat.

Another case in point is the recent call by SERAP, a civil society organization,on the new Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami to prosecute the thirty one (31) state governors whom the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, reported as corrupt and which was accepted and adopted by the National Assembly in 2006. That 31, out of the 36 state governors were found guilty by the EFCC of corruption,suggests that virtually all the governors in the era of erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo, had tarred with the same black brush. Therefore, to have singled out Ibori for persecution after the unfortunate passing away of former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, is seen as a deliberate punishment.

Another paradox can be drawn from the recent dismissal of fraud charges against former Bayelsa State governor, Timipreye Sylva, by Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court,Abuja on the ground that arraigning him three times on same charges in 2012,2013 and 2015, after the cases had been discharged was wrong. This underscores the fact that government can raise charges against a perceived enemy at their whims and caprices.

It would be recalled that Sylva, who is current APC governorship candidate in Bayelsa State, had served only one term in the state and was stopped from getting a second term ostensibly for fraud and incompetence. But in reality, his political career was truncated for allegedly falling out of favour with the then occupiers of Aso Rock villa, which is similar to what happened to James Ibori.

By opposing GEJ’s intention to run for the office of the president in 2011,Ibori certainly stepped on sensitive toes and the rest, as they say is history, as he is now on the last lap of his long incarceration.

But what is intriguing is that it has taken about half a decade for another party stalwart, Dokpesi who felt the same way as Ibori to speak out. As usual, he was quickly gagged, and in the interest of peace, he has modified his comment.

Amazingly, the catastrophic consequence which Ibori had predicted would befall the PDP,should his caution against fielding Jonathan not be heeded has materialized, as the PDP has now fallen from grace to grass.

No other PDP member of considerable weight has had the courage to voice the party unease publicly, so the sentiment about the calamity that Jonathan's presidency attracted to the party has remained in the realm of closed gossip.

Strangely, top PDP leaders who reasoned in like sum included Obasanjo, who in anger had publicly torn his membership card of the party.

Another was former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who also led five PDP governors out of Eagle square, venue of the presidential primary in protest, before subsequently defecting to APC.So Ibori basically was the first to ‘bell the cat’ and he was slammed by the system.

It is indeed a pity that, like Egyptian Pyramids,evidence of not being visionary enough to steer the former ruling party away from the precipice was looming, yet the party bigwigs, are still living in denial by pretending, like an ostrich that buries its head in the sand, that all her body is also concealed. Unknown to the bird, as in this case, the PDP, its whole body except the head is sticking out like a sore thumb.

The events that threw up Jonathan as vice presidential candidatein 2007 and brought him into national limelight, are still fresh in my memory because l was there when it was unraveling, nearly a decade ago as late Umaru Yar’Adua was being elected the presidential candidate of the PDP.

Under the chilling cold harmattan weather at the Eagle Square, Abuja, l had the rare privilege of being the returning officer for late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (2007-2010), who was then Katsina State governor and presidential candidate of the PDP.

Uche Secondus, the present Acting PDP Chairman,would remember that event clearly because he was desirous of being the returning officer to Yar’Adua before l was detailed to perform the duty. The responsibility of being the returning officer was thrust upon me by Yar’Adua himself, who conveyed his request through one of his close confidantes at that time,Abba Rumma who was later to become a super Minister under the Yar’Adua era.

I recall the restlessness of elder statesman Tony Anenih, then Chairman of PDP Board of Trustees, following the sudden changes made by Obasanjo, thatin order to move the party forward, only ex-presidents would become the party’s BOT Chairman. Also that night, I recall running into Jonathan, who had just won the gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State, and who as a delegate was at the Eagle Square to exercise his voting rights, in determining who would win the coveted flag bearer.  At that time, Jonathan was basking in the euphoria of having won the governorship election in Bayelsa State, having hitherto served out the second term of the late Diepreye Alamieyesegha, who had been impeached by forces external to the state. Obviously Jonathan was oblivious of the future of being the next vice presidential candidate of the party in a matter of another 72 hours.

As Chief Seattle, the renowned American Indian Chief of the Suquamish, once posited that, “Man did not weave the web of live; he is merely a strand in it.Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

Although, Peter Odili, then governor of Rivers State was angling for the job, he had stepped down his ambition, and the lot strangely fell on Jonathan who had no interest or inkling that such a feat was possible, let alone being the beneficiary.

At that time, also on queue for the vice presidential candidate was the youthful Donald Duke, ex- Cross Rivers State Governor, who was also left in the lurch like Odili.

As the psychologist,Mary Schlesinger has noted,life is full of surprises but as rational humans, we have to be psychologically prepared for the foibles, therefore she admonished that , “We can be negative and cynical or we can be charged and hot-wired to find a way through it,over it,around it,under it”

I’m convinced that the Odili and Duke have since moved on in life having gotten over the shenanigans, but they would certainly not share in my friends; Doyin Okupe and Olisa Metuh’s sentiments, that PDP did not make a mistake in fielding Jonathan  in 2007, 2011 and 2015.

After the Eagle Square presidential primary election, it was fate accompli when Jonathan emerged as the running mate to Yar'Adua. As faith would have it, Yar’Adua passed away in 2010, leaving Vice President Jonathan to serve out the two years of his four year term, as acting President.

However, instead of sustaining the PDP’s grand strategy of returning power to the north, which graciously passed it over to the south, the other side was adopted. This was clearly in breach of what played out, in the interest of peace and unity of Nigeria in 1999, following the unfortunate incident of the death in prison of Moshood Abiola, the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993 presidential elections.

But Jonathan and his cohorts, leveraging on the power of incumbency,had the chance to perfect the bright idea of controverting PDP’s agreement-in-principle of rotating power between the north and south. That grievous misstep of repudiating the informal and unwritten, but highly weighted agreement signaled the demise of the PDP, the party that once boasted that it would rule Nigeria continuously for the next 60 years.

After Atiku Abubakar had stormed out of the Eagle Square, venue of PDP's delegates' conference, with aggrieved governors in tow,the handwriting was clearly on the wall, that the demise of the party was imminent. Coming in tow was the ‘internecine’ war that divided the party into two factions, on the premise of the wrangling in the governor’s forum, which nailed the party's coffin.

According to J.F Kennedy, one of the most celebrated US Presidents “When written in Chinese, the word ‘CRISIS’ is composed of two characters, one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” In the course of the crisis that engulfed the party, Jonathan had chosen the former, which is danger that resulted in the splitting of the party into old and new, instead of the latter which was a window of opportunity for dousing  the brewing tension, hence the party’s sudden demise.

As Dokpesi takes the driver’s seat in trying to fix the broken PDP after a critical post mortem which is being currently undertaken, the implications of the dictum, “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely,” should be closely examined with a view to determining, if the concept of making the party’s presidential candidate also the absolute leader of the party,does not amount to concentrating too much power on one individual who could be susceptible to corruption.

Just as concentrated systems don’t support thriving economies, concentration of political power in one individual hinders democracy from thriving. In operations management, once a problem is identified, it is considered 50% solved. So PDP must first truly identify and acknowledge the problem with the party,so that it can solve it.

Being mindful of the existential reality that human foibles can make a saint become a sinner,nobody is infallible. Think about the Biblical account of Judas Iscariot, who accepted bribe to betray his master,Jesus Christ and Elisha, who accepted a gift from Gehazi, the leper whom his master Elijah had healed of leprosy, after he had been warned not to accept the gift that Gehazi had offered in gratitude for his healing.

We must remain mindful of the fact that it is the lure of the filthy lucre, also known as money that became irresistible to Judas and Elisha,hitherto very good men,which made them to succumb to the voice of greed, while damning their masters.

With Nigerian Constitution already conferring too much power on the President; there is a joke that Nigerian president is the most powerful in the world, granting similar absolute power of control of the political platform that brings the president to power, in my considered opinion is at best,unimaginative and at worst, a folly as evidenced by the current dire straits that PDP has now discovered.

Nothing illustrates the allure of power more than the fact that ex-President Obasanjo even attempted to perpetuate himself as president after serving out his mandatory two terms, by contemplating altering the constitution to facilitate a third term bid. Were it not for the firm resistance from the National Assembly, led by then Senate President Ken Nnamani, who in my view has remained an unsung hero,Nigeria’s political evolution would have taken a different turn.

Although, not in jail like Ibori, but Nnamani has been paying the price for stepping on powerful toes, as he is now in a sort of political limbo, while their traducers are forming new political alliances or celebrating birthdays.

Given all the dark and sinister activities that preceded his stealthy escape from the shores of Nigeria, somehow, Ibori’s supporters believe he is a 'Cause Célèbre or prisoner of conscience. Weather that assessment is right or wrong, would only be discovered in the course of time and perhaps in memoirs by the dramatis personae in the theater of the absurd, which a cursory look at the nation called Nigeria would reveal.

Certainly,future candid accounts demonstrated by political stalwarts like,Obasanjo, Jonathan,Atiku,Anenih,Ibori,Nnamani,Odili,Duke etc., and perhaps the then EFCC Chairmen, Nuhu Ribadu and Ibrahim Larmode, would shed more light in the cause of the broken PDP, which now looks like a jigsaw puzzle or the kids cartoon character- Humpty Dumpty.

Meanwhile, what Obasanjo could not achieve in Nigeria, Russian President Vladimir Putin, accomplished by tinkering with the Constitution in the iron curtain country of Europe and returning himself to office as president after stepping aside temporarily as President.Closer home in Africa, it was a fait accompli for Pierre Nkurunziza,who also recently succeeded in accomplishing a similar feat of extending his term in Burundi by altering his country’s Constitution.

Even President Barack Obama of the USA during his last visit to Africa and in the course of his address to African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in making a case against African heads of government who refuse to leave office, noted that he would have loved to serve a third term as President of the USA, but he is constitutionally bared.

This implies that the lure of power can be highly irresistible, but unlike Russia and Burundi,the American system does not confer on the president, the absolute power to do and undo, otherwise the hugely popular John F. Kennedy would have served many terms as president and so would the charismatic Ronald Reagan and the infectious and affable Bill Clinton.

If the new ruling party APC, makes the same mistake of concentrating the absolute power to control or manipulate the party on the president, l foresee calamity ahead because even though President Muhammadu Buhari is universally acknowledged as God-fearing, honest and forthright, the maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely may be replayed.

In the wisdom of the philosopher, Carl Sandburd , “Time is the coin of life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful, lest you let other people spend it for you.”

If President Buhari does not judiciously usethe power concentrated in him, as both president and leader of the party, the hawks around him would try to influence him to do so or could even use the power by themselves, in Buhari’s name.

So, my humble advice to APC is, learn from PDP’s mistakes.  And to the PDP, l would say, diagnose your ailment correctly, so that the appropriate medicine could be administered to cure the disease.

***Magnus Onyibe, is a Development Strategist,Futurologist and former Commissioner in Delta State. He is an alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,USA.