PDP and the ‘Chairman’s Curse’

Is the former ruling party now turned opposition, the People’s Democratic Party, labouring under the heavy yoke of a curse? I am not in any way superstitious but I have heard it said by some who know that one of the many men who have been at the apex of that party and who was […]

Is the former ruling party now turned opposition, the People’s Democratic Party, labouring under the heavy yoke of a curse? I am not in any way superstitious but I have heard it said by some who know that one of the many men who have been at the apex of that party and who was forced to relinquish that coveted seat was so pissed off that he placed a curse on the party. He, it has been said, made a pronouncement against the party saying that given the way he served the party diligently and to the best of his intention and ability and given the corresponding way he was so shabbily treated leading to his inglorious exit, it shall not be well with the party and that it will continue to move from one crisis to another. Is that curse, if really there is any, having an effect on the PDP?
At its well-advertised May 21 National Convention in Port-Harcourt which well-wishers hoped that the party will witness a rebirth and reposition itself to effectively play the role of an opposition party and look like a very credible alternate government in waiting in case the APC falters, the PDP in what is fast becoming its tradition or trade mark, yet again engineered the ousting of one more of its chairmen, Senator Ali Modu Sherriff, in what is nothing less than a coup.
Betrayal, chicken-heartedness, unconscionable action, perfidy and many more are the proper words to use in describing the action of those who were backing Sheriff.
Sherriff was embarrassed by the very people who had played a significant role in his emergence as chairman making him look ridiculous as the Italian Mafia bosses will put it. Do not make a man of significance look ridiculous in the eyes of his peers or anyone else. Now the party is being taunted by those who hate it or do not wish it well. It is held up as one party with three leaders. Ali Modu Sherriff is left in the lurch.
Here is a man who was lured by the governors’ faction of the party to come help and revive the party. He accepted their invitation, took to the task with gusto to demonstrate the type of stuff he is made of. He possibly invested his money, his reputation and political sagacity in the job only for another faction of the party headed by former ministers and elders some of whom cannot win their wards for the party to mount a serious challenge against him only for his sponsors to capitulate mid-stream, leaving him to sink or swim. That is perfidy of the worst order. The main argument of his traducers is that he has a bad reputation. In refuting this I love the Camerounian Pidgin English which says that who well sef?
Who among those who questioned the reputation of Ali Modu Sherriff is cleaner than him? Who among them in all conscience will say the way Sheriff was treated is fair and right and can boldly cast the first stone? For some of us who are not very skilled in politics we think that Ali Modu Sherriff is the best person to help the PDP rediscover itself. But alas the PDP leopard cannot change her spots. Was it not this party that our own W.S. (Wole Soyinka) once described as a nest of killers? Are we seeing a nest of reptilian killers in action?
If the PDP is suffering from the curse of one aggrieved chairman; is it not content enough? Does it want another chairman to add his own to the collective curses heaped on that party by other members and ex-members because of the crooked way it has chosen to conduct its affairs since its formation some eighteen years ago Ali Modu Sherriff is not one anyone should treat like that. He will go down fighting and he has every right to fight doggedly the way he has been fighting since that coup. He deserves an apology from the PDP. Wike and Fayose should lead a delegation and prostrate and beg Ali Modu Sherriff for forgiveness for the ill manner they treated him. Sherriff did not impose himself on the PDP. He did not impose himself as chairman on the party. They were people who sold him the idea. There were people who urged him on. There were people who promised him they will go all the way with him until he becomes a substantive chairman. Why did those men chicken out without having the decency, honour and courtesy of telling him that the tide had changed and that it will be better if he backed down and then a respectable option for his stepping down was worked out? Why did they behave as if Sherriff has no feelings? Would they have liked it if someone had treated them the way they treated Sherriff?
Someone once said that a week in politics is a long time. Again, politics is like a fast flowing current. Things change so quickly that calculations must necessarily also change. But when his main backers in Wike and Fayose realized that the plan to make him continue as chairman until 2018will not work, they should have come to him respectfully to say, “see, this thing will not succeed’’ and then plan a more dignified, more respectable and more honourable exit for him that will still make him remain a respected and honourable elder- member of the party.
Now Sherriff cannot go back to his former party, the APC. He is left like that-in the lurch. Wike and co are so unfair and so inconsiderate to Sherriff. What do they want such a young man who has his eyes on higher things in Nigerian politics to do? He should sit by the sidelines and become irrelevant? If anyone has hatched such a coup against Wike and co will they like it or will they not go down fighting like a wounded lion? Today, Sherriff is a wounded lion and if they are men and woman of wisdom still left in the PDP they should come together fast, acknowledge the evil they have done to Sherriff and repent genuinely of that wrong in their hearts. Their meeting should not end there. The next step is to send a high-powered delegation consisting of even some of those who were stridently in opposition against him to go and appease him. For PDP to know peace, the man to first placate and restore to favour now is Ali Modu Sherriff.
That delegation should have a pastor and a Muslim imam among them who should pray and break whatever curse that the party may be suffering from and solicit the forgiveness of all those who have been treated in the now familiar PDP manner.
Alibi wrote this piece from Abuja