Mu’azu: Another one for the dust?

One of them is that the Party is Supreme over its elected public officers from President and down the rungs, and is equally yoked with the national burden as the Executive, being the parent and custodian of the party manifesto. The President was the Party’s leading messenger.Alas, in the nation’s history, the last time it […]

One of them is that the Party is Supreme over its elected public officers from President and down the rungs, and is equally yoked with the national burden as the Executive, being the parent and custodian of the party manifesto. The President was the Party’s leading messenger.
Alas, in the nation’s history, the last time it worked like that was in 1983, when ruling National Party of Nigeria Chairman Chief Adisa Akinloye could demand that the President  and the leaders of the National Assembly join the Party Executive at the Party Headquarters to submit to the Party on national issues over which there were divergent views. In the end the Party view prevailed. The Party gave direction to the National Assembly and Legislators kept in line.
Bamanga Tukur let it be known that he had high hopes of this status restoration of the Party to the known norms which he articulated in his 3Rs pamphlet, namely Reconciliation, Reformation and Rebirth agenda. The People’s Democratic Party, nay all political parties in Nigeria are direly in need of reform especially those that can address the absence of values and tenets, without which there can be no discipline.

On reconciliation, the vision suffered the snob of the Governors who felt that Tukur was imposed on them and were belligerent from day one. Sadly for some of them, a first attempt to close ranks with Tukur found Wadata Plaza in crisis of legitimacy, management, and confidence. Worse, discipline meant total submission to the President, and when this was resisted, it meant stripping governors of their control of the party by dislodging State Executive Councils and installing others with a clear disposition in favour of the President. This placed the Tukur regime on a collision course with mostly second term governors.
The contentious issue is the party’s 2015 Presidential ticket. President Goodluck Jonathan obviously is hard put to let the Party decide his fate. This would have afforded Tukur some leverage to achieve the remaining Rs, namely reform and rebirth by politicking to secure the desirable and unavoidable nod of the governors. No political party worth its salt ousts its incumbent President, a point driven ad nauseam by Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State. Yet as Party leaders in their own right, there is the matter of honour which denies them the freedom to be mere YES MEN to a President’s ambition, and therefore must necessarily hold the President to accounts through even a dramatised primary process similar to former President Obasanjo’s second term ploy. More importantly, internal democracy enables hopefuls to demonstrate their characters to the voting party followers, not necessarily to defeat the President, but to reveal future leadership material to the nation. Some of the G7 Governors feel qualified to contest and rightly so, even in this regard, but President Goodluck Jonathan wants that ticket even as he is the incumbent and holding it, and has no stomach for its challenge but a consensus. What informs his fears beats my imagination, adept as he has demonstrated in election or is it selection and retention of Tukur, and the installation now, of Mu’azu.

Essentially, it behoves the PDP to learn to conduct credible primaries and give true meaning to internal democracy as of first instance. In Tukur’s case, while the party suffered from lack of funds, ambitious, bootlicking presidential appointees seized the initiative, joined by failed government contractors with no allegiance to the party; misapplying patronage by overheating the polity with their flaming tongues, viewing such as a demonstration of loyalty to the president and support for his 2015 ambitions. In doing this, they believed they were demonstrating superior assurance to that of Tukur and the party. Tukur’s errors stemmed from decisions foisted on him by these lackeys from the Presidency, in many cases, without Presidential blessings. With a supportive and functioning political party, the President had no need for godfathers, attack dogs and ethnic warlords.
For Bamanga Tukur as Chairman, many challenges were clear and present. There was and to date, no internal democracy in the party, let alone any level playing field for the opposition. What and who the President wants, the Party gives, and this is replicated in the States where the Governors hold sway as the be-all-and-end-all. The Governors determined the State Party Executive, just as they did whoever contested and won any elective office from State Assembly to the House of Representatives and the Senate. The third tier – the Local Governments had been compromised and nullified so to speak. Thus by hook or by crook, the ruling party had installed a one party participatory democracy in the land.
Economically, the numbers pointed to a performing economy with growth of 7 per cent, and should have made Nigeria happy, but indicators spoke differently and still do.
Poverty and the skewed revenue allocation formula have caused a dangerous regional dichotomy, making it easy for the President to be unpopular in the North. Clearly the North is grossly so disfavoured that to accept the status quo is to await sudden political upheaval and doom, which will not augur well for the continued sustenance of the Nigerian dream.

The security situation was also a challenge for which President Jonathan lost popularity in the North, for admitting he had Boko Haram agents in his government, and yet did not arrest them. The handling of insecurity caused and has worsened the low Northern esteem for President Jonathan.
The defined expectation is for People’s Democratic Party to win the 2015 election and as of importance, return President Goodluck Jonathan to another term. Against the challenges enumerated here, can (and will) Chairman Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu deliver?
Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu has an awesome can-do spirit. One payoff sums up his tenure as Governor of two terms – Bauchi, transformed by good thinking. Brilliance stands Mu’azu in good stead to accomplish his task, arduous as it seems. As one of his mentors Wazirin Bauchi Muhammad Bello Kirfi told World Service radio, Mu’azu is bold and brave and will bring the full force of his youthful energy to bear on the task at hand. He will bring value to the Goodluck ticket given his Babangida type of disarming generosity. Mu’azu has enough goodwill to burn in quantity sufficient to give assuage to the North and retrieve the region’s lost support. A lot would depend on post 2015 offers and the extent to which its new political class is pacified and assured of a better deal. Otherwise, Mu’azu is another one to bite the dust.