What Jonathan must do to save the PDP in Jos

Well, if you compare the party’s goodwill under Obasanjo and Yar’adua, there is a lot of difference. Even the politicians in the PDP are misusing their positions because of the ill-health of President Yar’adua. This development has made it mandatory for Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, to consider viable options to reclaim glory in various PDP-controlled […]

Well, if you compare the party’s goodwill under Obasanjo and Yar’adua, there is a lot of difference. Even the politicians in the PDP are misusing their positions because of the ill-health of President Yar’adua.

This development has made it mandatory for Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, to consider viable options to reclaim glory in various PDP-controlled states that are now facing political turmoils.

In Plateau state for example, PDP has is at cross roads to the fear that any little push, the party will go the way of Abia, Edo and Ondo States. It is amazing that in all of these troubled states, individual interests are usually at war with common interests.

What is expected now from Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is to re-activate the PDP so that those individuals who see themselves as a party within the party, are encouraged to reform themselves. Acting President Jonathan is still in his good age and will certainly need a good PDP in the nearest future because for him, the political fortune-dance has just begun.

It is imperative to bring to your notice, the political upheaval in Plateau State so that you can handle it objectively. There were two factional Excos in Plateau State before their dissolution by the party’s National Working Committee (NWC).

As politicians, we know former Governor Joshua Dariye was incumbent Governor Jonah Jang’s campaign manager in the early period of preparations for the 1999 political exercise. It is therefore not out of place to trace their political feud to 1999 when Jonah Jang was rigged out by the conspiracy of Dariye, Solomon Lar, Damishi Sango, etc.   

For me, Governor Jang deserves a better deal from the PDP at the centre over the dissolution.

Jonah Jang joined the Nigeria Air Force as a teenager. Having trained in Nigeria and abroad, he was appointed Military Governor of old Benue state (now Benue and Kogi) and later Gongola state (now Taraba and Adamawa)

One of the reasons he got support to contest election since 1999 were  his skills during his military years in resolving sectarian and ethnic crises dotting the entire north central and beyond. He was reputed to have made peace possible between the Igalas and Tivs, such that the traditional council in Igalaland conferred on him the prestigious Olimene-Attah-Igala. He got something similar from the Tiv people when he brokered  a reconciliation between the Tivs and Junkuns. It is on account of this that the Lamido holds Jang in high esteem till date.

In Plateau state, having stepped into the shoes worn by former Governor Dariye, it was an exceptional privilege for Jang to showcase good governance.

Godson Aliyu is a pharmacist and politician based in Benin City.