X-Raying PDP @ 14

One of the main arguments for supporting Jonathan by some people in the 2011 general elections was their belief that the man’s ideology is different from that of his party – the PDP. The self acclaimed biggest party in Africa was a bastion of hope for most Nigerians in 1998 due to caliber of its founding fathers – the late Pa Sunday Awoniyi, Dr Alex Ekwueme, Dr. Suleiman Kumo, Mallam Adamu Chiroma Solomon Lar, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and other prominent Nigerians. However, some few years after its ascendance to power, the political party under Obasanjo turned into a monster of a sort.  The founding fathers of the party became its first victims. PDP’s rule turned out to be generally a disaster – characterized by lack of internal democracy, violation of rule of law, corruption, open stealing of public funds, electoral malpractices and violence, rigging and short changing electorates will.

Most Nigerians then believed that our socio-economic problems were essentially brought by our long stay under military rule and these problems would go underground as soon as civilian democratic governance was enthroned. But after 13 years in power things got worst under PDP, with Nigeria being ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world with poverty as one of our features. An average Nigerian today is numbing with frustration, disillusionment and total loss of hope owing to the way the PDP governments in the last 13 years managed our lives.

Though the PDP has often times claimed that the party adhered to the vision of its founding fathers ‘to form a large, all encompassing democratic party, with shoulders broad and strong enough as bulwark against military adventurism’ in practice what the PDP creates or created was a party run by few which lacks internal democracy and the will to carry everybody along. According to Reuben Abati, who now works with the PDP government, contrary to the PDP’s claim of National cohesion and keeping the military in the barracks, “Nigeria is as much a divided society today as it was in 1960. And the PDP should not take credit for keeping the military out of political power. The credit should go to the hapless people of Nigeria who in the face of the inefficiency of the PDP have nonetheless accepted democracy as a kind of blackmail”. And in terms of governance what the PDP was able to give Nigerians in the past 13 years was “tears, sorrow and blood” with deadly ethno-religious riots in virtually all the regions of the federations.

The PDP, contrary to its claims of upholding the vision of its founding fathers, the party in the last 13 years compounded the socio-economic problems the nation inherited from the 15 years of military mis-rule and in fact, what politicians did under the tutelage of PDP in the last 13 years was even worse than what the military did since independence. The brazen looting and pilfering of public funds under the PDP is unimaginable. The looting in the oil industry alone cannot be compared to any, even the Gulf War windfall scandal of the IBB era. Corruption under the PDP in the last 13 years is so deeply rooted, so widespread, that it was in effect a way of governance, one that could not be quickly overturned.

An estimated 20,000 people were killed since 1999 as a result of ethno-religious crises in many parts of the country and since 2010, the country is made to suffer deadly attacks from Boko Haram, which is now a tool the PDP uses to wreck havoc in some parts of the country, all in their desperate attempt to rule the country forever. The Boko Haram issue alone is enough for the PDP government to bury itself in shame; the nation is now police by the military. How true then is their assertion of keeping the military in the barracks?

However, the PDP still has time to redeem itself. Instead of using crude method to ensure they stay in power, the party has 3 years to turn things around and accept true democracy where majority have their way and the minority are given their rights as citizens. But as we are now, the PDP might find it very difficult to use coercion in maintaining its dominance on the political landscape of the country beyond 2015. And it could also important for the party to heed the advice of prominent Nigerians, and opposition parties and change the way they supervise elections, the way they govern the country and the way they manage public trust. PDP can still be a great political party despite the party being taken over by unscrupulous and rogues elements. But unless if they change their ways of doing things, free themselves from military mentality and adopt civility in the way they run the party and the nation.