Peter Obi’s Resignation From The Pdp Signals The Party’s Final Demise

Since the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) lost the presidential election to the APC in 2015, the party has not fully recovered. With its flagbearer at the time being a sitting president, the defeat was a major blow from which it continued to reel seven years after, until now when it appears to be Nunc dimities for a political party that once boasted to be the largest in Africa.

For emphasis, PDP’s fortunes began to plummet since the party lost the 2015 presidential election to the APC. As the proverbial cliché goes, “strike the shepherd and the flock scatters”, former president Goodluck Jonathan may have been called a hero for making ‘the call’, but he appeared to be too jarred from the outcome of the 2015 election to function as a national rallying point of a party immersed in corruption allegations immediately after an ignominious defeat at the centre. Others have argued that the man from Otueke was indeed as clueless as he was labelled and only lived up to his tag with the way he turned his back on a party which gave him a platform to become a president.

However, the PDP as of 2015, was debilitated and has had no grounds whatsoever to perform the duties of the opposition ever since. The party underwent all sorts of challenges, with some of its leaders, such as Olisa Metu, having corruption charges hanging over their neck like the sword of the Damocles. Metu, who served as the publicity secretary of the party eventually went to jail on allegations of corruption and misuse of public funds.

The PDP’s ordeals post-2015 did not only stop at the widespread media coverage of various sleazes and sharp practices by party members and top government officials, but the party was also hit the most, in my opinion, by a pervasive aversion and resentment by the public. It appeared that the PDP was synonymous with the word “corruption”.

This development and the adverse public perception of the PDP have had major political consequences for the party with former members scrambling to extricate themselves from its rots and misfortunes. For example, whereas it controlled nearly all the 36 states of the federation before Jonathan emerged the sole candidate of the party in 2015, only 16 governors remained in the party after the 2019 election.

As at the time of writing, three (3) more governors have defected to the APC since the 2019 election (Matawalle of Zamfara in June 2021; Umahi of Ebonyi in November 2020 and Ayade of Cross-rivers in May 2022), leaving only 13 states out of 36 in the hands of the PDP.

Of the thirteen (13) remaining states, two (2) are in the southeast geopolitical zone (Abia, and Enugu); five (5) are in the south-south (Akwaibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers); two (2) are in the northeast (Bauchi and Taraba); one (1) is in the northwest (Sokoto); there is one in the north-central (Benue) and one in the southwest (Oyo).

The foregoing shows a pattern of gradual thinning in the spread and influence of the PDP to the extent that in the whole of the southwest of Nigeria, only one state has a PDP governor, while the combination of the southeast and south-south geopolitical zones has seven (7) governors out of a possible eleven (11). The entire north has only 5 governors in the PDP out of a possible 19.

As grim as the PDP numbers above suggest, the unwritten agreement by the political gladiators in Nigeria that power must shift to the south in 2023 provided a golden opportunity for the party to launch a comeback. Although very prominent APC candidates from the southwest have made public their intentions to run for the office of the president in 2023, the general feeling by conservatives has been that the southeast geopolitical zone which has not produced a president since the current of stretch of democracy which began in 1999 should be given a chance in the spirit of equity, fairness, and inclusion. Analysts have reasoned that since the APC looks all set to zone the presidency to the south after President Buhari’s two terms in office, it should be an easy decision for the PDP which has enjoyed perennial support from the south to zone their own ticket to the south, especially to the southeast, a zone that has stood with it since 1999.

Among all the PDP candidates who declared interests to run, the former Anambra state governor, Mr Peter Obi, had emerged as the man to beat within the party, and given the ticket, in the general election. His direct-talking and a track record of prudent leadership as former governor have made him very popular among a section of the elite and indeed the ordinary people in Nigeria. Obi’s background in the banking sector and proven competencies in managing the economy appeared to elevate him to a pedestal as the most suited leader to take Nigeria out of a deep economic crisis marked by rising inflation and enormous debt. His national appeal recently drove the youth and patriotic Nigerians from all walks of life to embark on a nation-wide rally appealing to the PDP delegates to give him their ticket for the 2023 presidential election.

For a party that is fighting to restore its prestige and relevance in Nigeria after the battering of the 2015 and 2019 general elections, Obi’s populist appeal, integrity and reputation as the man with the right economic savvy to save Nigeria at this critical juncture should have been enough to convince the PDP leadership and delegates to turn to him and leverage on his campaign to launch a renaissance.

Unfortunately, it appeared that there was a gang-up within the PDP to frustrate Mr Obi in favour of other less popular candidates. His perceived puritanical and ascetic posturing, mixed with a demonstrated loathing for the extravaganza of political patronage and cash-and-carry politics effectively pitted him against his rivals who felt directly targeted by his campaign which they must have misinterpreted as a performance of unnecessary virtue signalling. So, rather than focus on the strength and merit of his campaign and the wave he is making across the country, powerful people within the PDP appeared to prefer to rather throw their best candidate out and cut their face to spite their nose. Obi read the bold handwriting and announced his resignation from the party earlier on May 25, 2022.

The PDP had been dangling precariously on the precipice of the bottomless pit since it lost power at the centre in 2015. With Peter Obi abandoning the party while they appear to be busy chasing other mundanities, they are certainly on their way down now.

Projecting Peter Obi should have represented the PDP's rebirth and renaissance given the sheer enormity of goodwill and national appeal the modest billionaire commands across the country.

It was said that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and company went to Daura to beg Buhari to contest in 2015 given his wide popularity as an austere leader after PDP's vaunted tenure of waste; in the same manner, the PDP should have been the ones begging Obi to bear its banner of a campaign to recover Nigeria from the ruins of the APC.

But what have they done? They have bungled it and instead opted for the chaff rather than the grains. Whichever party Obi joins next, he will still carry his aura and appeal and remains the best candidate for the job. So, the only loser remains the PDP. What a way to self-destruct!