Towards the rebirth of the PDP

Today, at the Thisday Dome in Abuja, the country’s former ruling party and the current main opposition party, the PDP, is set to brainstorm in a national conference on the way forward for the party after its near disastrous outing in the 2015 general elections in which Nigerians expressed their displeasure at the ways of […]

Today, at the Thisday Dome in Abuja, the country’s former ruling party and the current main opposition party, the PDP, is set to brainstorm in a national conference on the way forward for the party after its near disastrous outing in the 2015 general elections in which Nigerians expressed their displeasure at the ways of some of its men and women and at the ways of the party itself. It is no small indictment that at some point in the life of this nation, the PDP, as the ruling party, became synonymous with impunity, unfairness, subversion of its very rules and the rules of the country. It got to a point when some PDP members themselves would humorously remark that ‘’I have been PDPied’’ by which it is meant that he has been unfairly or unjustly or dishonestly treated.
I am not a card-carrying member of any of our over fifty odd registered political parties but I am passionately committed to the well -being of all of them because the system of electoral democracy which we have chosen for ourselves as our preferred mode of governance cannot thrive unless we have viable parties to canvas positions and compete fairly for electoral support. Unless a thousand flowers are allowed to blossom, our country cannot achieve much.
As the main opposition party, I am particularly committed to the growth and development of the PDP so that the APC will not become complacent or even worse, degenerate to the smugness of the PDP which had made that party impervious to reason and to all civilized cannons. It is highly gratifying to me that the PDP is behaving better in defeat that it acted when it had won and exercised power. I sincerely think that one of the papers the organisers should have commissioned for presentation at the conference should have been entitled ‘’The Sweet Benefits of Defeat’’.
Defeat has a way of opening your eyes to see things you were doing wrongly when you were intoxicated by power. It has a way of also reminding you of your humanity. No matter how powerful you are or think you are, defeat helps to make you become aware of the limits of your power and boastings. It also reminds you of the need to be more humble and to be more considerate of others.  PDP used to take the people for granted which is why its thinkers and leaders should be commended for realizing the need to return power to the people. Power, in the Old PDP, used to belong to ‘persons’ in that party and not to the people, which is a very grave anomaly in an electoral democracy.
The other deadly sins of the PDP include arrogance, unwillingness to adhere to any set rules or civilized standards, unceasing pursuit of politics as an end in itself and therefore scant attention paid to the issues of development, adoption of unprincipleness as an article of faith and the jettisoning of the vision and mission of its enlightened founding fathers. As the party is having a conversation with itself beginning from today, these and many more are some of the issues they must discuss frankly and very honestly without causing recriminations by trying to apportion blames to some individuals as is the case now. Doing so will not achieve any useful purpose.
I am praying for the PDP to rise again from the ashes of its defeat as a patriot and not as a possible partisan with some sympathy for the party. The PDP needs to be very strong so that it will be able to keep the ACP in check and constantly on its toes. It is very much in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians that the APC is not allowed, by default, to engage in the kind of excesses that the PDP became known for.  We Nigerians should resolve that never again should we go back in any way or form to the kind of one dominant political party as happened when the PDP was at its heydays.
Before APC becomes arrogant, unfeeling and act with impunity, PDP needs to be revived, by being rebuilt, retooled, re-energised and revamped to become a strong and attractive alternative platform to act as a possible bulwark against a possibly bullish APC. We are after all a democracy and must function with a regime of checks and balances. We need a balance of forces for the democratic health of Nigeria.  If
APC becomes a rigging machine, PDP will match them rigging for rigging, money for money and power for power. The knowledge that if a particular party falters or begins to misbehave, there is an alternative waiting in the winds, willing and able to take over immediately, can be such a great check on conduct.
There is no doubt about it that we have a President that is generally perceived as nationalistic and incorruptible. But the party on whose platform he has risen to power is not perceived as embodying in its philosophy or the modus operandi of its leading lights, the virtues for which the President is held in high esteem. But again even if the President and his party are saints, it is dangerous not to have possible viable alternatives. It was the late Chinua Achebe who maintained that he will not like to live in a society where there is a dictatorship of even angels! We must consciously reject a semi one-party rule as was nearly the case when the PDP was at its peak which is why even those who hate the PDP should pray and work for the resuscitation of that party.