Will PDP Survive Nyesom Wike?

By Mobolaji Sanusi

“Those who don’t know the truth are fools, but those who know the truth and call it a lie are criminals.”
—-Bertolt Brecht(1898-1956)

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is now a ghost of its former self, and its sad fate is self-inflicted. From being a party that dominated the country’s political landscape and inflicted crooked democratic values on our psyche, with a leadership that behaved as if its rosy yesterday will be forever, its current pathetic state is a classical lesson not only for today’s national ruling party but also for all living beings; today’s not forever.

Fortunately, two men who played critical roles in building the party’s monstrous profile and the other one who helped in decimating the party are still alive.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo built the party on crooked democratic values, turning it into a monstrously feared party, while Nyesom Wike is still working assiduously to ensure that the party exists only in name, not in political substance. And this latter sad tale, he’s achieving to the applause of an unsuspecting or deliberately mischievous partisan public.

Unfortunately, in our society today, people hardly defend what is right anymore but are quick to defend who they like, particularly if the person is of pecuniary benefits to them. No sincere democrat can ever be happy that the PDP and other political parties are going into ineffectual extinction-even though if temporarily because no condition is permanent. Whatever democratic vices PDP might have promoted in the past, the reality is that the party remains a strong part of the country’s democratic evolution and its survival, not its death should be the wish of true patriots.

Beyond patriotic wishes, the reality of PDP’s survival is better amplified by the Yoruba saying: “Ehinkule’lota’wa…inu’ile’ni’aseni’ngbe….” This aptly captures the party’s never-ending battle against itself. The pertinency of this Yoruba saying was given impetus by Nyesom Wike, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and former governor of Rivers State when he visited Wadata Plaza headquarters of the PDP a week ago.

Wike during that visit made startling statements that exposed his erroneous assessments of fellow countrymen as being politically gullible. He started on a hypocritical note while referring to himself as being part of PDP even while the dumbest person in this country knows he’s a quasi-member of that party by saying: “Today we are not in government, but this is the main opposition party as far as this country is concerned. You cannot become a main opposition party without winning elections. So those who say that they are leading the opposition have never contested in any election. The one they contested is the Abuja Municipal Area Council; they could not get one councillor.”

Wike is right for pointing out that the so-called opposition of his “could not get one councilor” but to say that the PDP that he has personally decimated is “the main opposition party as far as this country is concerned” is nothing but a mockery of the political sensibilities of Nigerians. Yes, as rightly observed by Wike, PDP might not be in power but he as a minister is in power—in truth, words and deeds. As a strong minister in an APC-controlled government and a potent cum divisive leader of PDP whose faction is today in control of the erstwhile ruling party’s headquarters, Wike cannot be sincere with this statement.

Furthermore, he could at best be adjudged as poking fun at people when he also beckoned on his protege in Wadata Plaza to “bring back our members who have defected, thinking that the party would no longer come back. Make sure you attract them back into the fold, talk to them, and send a powerful team to interact with them. Most of them are afraid of whether they will get a ticket or not. You know what to do.” This is ridiculously laughable when, in fact, Wike is not only serving in an APC government but is really immersed in working for the party as against the PDP that he wants defectors to return to. Even in his controlled Rivers state, he handed over the grassroots during last year’s local government elections to the ruling APC. Wike is leading by precept and not by example.

The fears of defecting PDP members that Wike looks forward to welcoming back are well known to him when he said: “Most of them may have defected because of uncertainty. If I want to run an election and I’m not sure who will sign my documents to be presented to INEC, then I will definitely find where I can get succour. But now, if you go and talk to them, I believe they will have a rethink and continue to support this party.” He wants returnees to support a party that he’s patently working against.

A clear signal from the hypocritically contradictory statements of Wike is that the APC leadership should be wary of this Rivers state man. He wants to keep the PDP platform for as long as President Bola Tinubu, GCFR, is in power and the current ruling party considers him an important intruder to be discarded. This may happen immediately the current administration’s tenure is nearing an end, God willing, in 2031, Wike will unleash his PDP-controlled party and leadership against APC and the current president. I have predicted this in my previous writings and I am now repeating it today in this column.

With everyone who is against him in PDP now out of his way, he ensured that his protégés including factional chairman, Abdulrahman Mohammed Takushara, factional Board of Trustees Chairman, Mao Ohuabunwa, and factional secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, were never supplanted by Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state and his team, no matter the cost. He is not doing this for the ruling national party but to foster and protect his political future against anticipated APC aggression. Wike’s political antecedent portends an entrenchment of a regime of opportunism at the detriment of principle and institutional development.

As of today, the PDP as a political party is in carcass and unfortunately, the man that is responsible for its sustained decimation is hypocritically the one calling for its revival even when his conduct speaks the opposite. What a contradiction! Whether or not PDP will survive Wike, time shall tell.

•Sanusi, former MD/CEO of Lagos State Signage & Advertisement Agency, is currently managing partner at AMS RELIABLE SOLICITORS. (sms/whatsapp-07011117777).