IF the split that occurred at the Special Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the on-going crisis taught any lessons, it was that, in theory and in practice, democracy is no vanity. You either believe in and practise it, or you corrupt it for as long as you wish only to have that grand deceit implode, sooner or later. While the crisis has engendered debate about the future of the party and the democratic process in Nigeria, it has also exposed the fact that the so-called largest party in Africa, not bound together by any lofty ideal, has been nothing other than a special purpose vehicle for political contractors and sundry jobbers and predators for acquiring power for its own sake, amassing wealth via the route of government as the biggest business, and impoverishing the people so mindlessly they have neither chance nor voice to dissent. But as is always the case with all houses of cards, the PDP eventually, has to face its own internal contradictions. The argument can, of course, be made that the other parties are not much better. And it is hoped that all would learn a lesson or two from the crisis rocking the PDP. This country needs healthy political parties. Democracy does too. The healthier the parties in democratic credentials, the healthier the polity. It is therefore, not just a mere wish but an ardent hope that, from the current rumblings in PDP, may emerge a better party with the interest of Nigeria and democracy at heart. While the leadership of the PDP is locked in a frenzied but obviously haphazard effort to mend fences with the aggrieved factions, leaders from other parties have applauded the breakaway faction for its “commitment to making all the sacrifices needed to rescue our dear nation from the current reign of terror and bad governance.” It would be in the interest of Nigeria for that to be the outcome of this crisis. Some people have said that the implosion of the PDP was expected because of the content and character of the party. Others simply construed it as the dynamic nature of politics. Indeed, political thinkers have always seen politics as the contestation among actors with different viewpoints on the management of public affairs. For that reason, it can be argued that divergences are a necessary part of the political process. However, such differences are meaningful only to the extent that they relate to public good, but extremely worrisome when the contestations are on power for its own sake. No doubt, from formation, the PDP has remained a non-descript entity, an umbrella body of strange bedfellows. The arrangement that brought it to power in 1999 was bereft of strong democratic principles. In effect, all those who occupied executive positions at both the state and federal levels merely usurped party powers and undermined its supremacy to the extent that once elected, government officials became more powerful than the party that produced them. As a corollary, loyalty shifted from the party to individuals who were either elected into public offices, appointed into same or were wealthy financiers. Party discipline was thrown overboard and executive whims and extra-constitutional behaviour governed party affairs so much so that its constitution was operated only to suit the temperament of its leaders. What is more, internal democracy was banished from the party and its members became untaught to the fact that democracy is the pleasant tyranny of the majority. General elections conducted since PDP came into power have all tainted the democratization process and were some of the worst in the country’s electoral history. The party became an unwieldy behemoth, housing many undemocratic tendencies, especially elements which have discerned early enough that government is the fastest route to wealth and designed a way to get in at all costs. The party thus became a clog to the democratic transformation of the polity, an unmanned or poorly driven monstrous truck rolling over the landscape, crushing anything in its path, with its first victims being its prominent members. Given this undemocratic character of the party, the August 31 implosion was hardly surprising. The breakaway faction of the party has a catalogue of grievances. These include increased repression in the party; restrictions of freedom of association; arbitrary suspension of members, abuse of the party constitution, whimsical shifting of the original date of the special convention approved by its national executive council; the suspension without due process of the Governors of Rivers and Sokoto states; the illegal dissolution of the Adamawa State chapter of the party and admission of illegal delegates from some states, among many other undemocratic conducts. The faction has also argued that the foregoing antinomies were “desperate permutations towards 2015 general elections” designed to shut out “any real or imagined opposition ahead of the party’s presidential primaries for the 2015 elections.” Issues at stake, therefore, revolve around party discipline, internal democracy, transparency and accountability and the mathematics of 2015. Apart from being an aggregation of people with commonality of interest, a political party is the motor-force of democracy and a breeding ground for leadership and policy articulation. Most parties in Nigeria today are counterfeit of what a political party should be, and are mere platforms for self-aggrandizement and the realisation of the ambitions of individuals without a vision for state-building. This tragedy is even more evident in the conduct of the problematic convention where, unfortunately but not unexpectedly, the PDP did not engage the country in any debate about how to resolve critical national issues such as the strike by university teachers, the intractable energy crisis, unemployment and the escalating insecurity in the country. Rather, the party only got itself immersed in jostling for power ahead of 2015. Thus, the fundamental implication of its current crisis is that governance will henceforth be relegated to the background and the delivery of public good will be off the agenda. Potentially, this has an inherent destabilising effect. Which is why the case is being made here and now that while Nigerians may have resigned themselves to the fate of poor governance by the PDP, they would not brook a situation in which the party seeks to drag the country into its crisis. Indeed, if the party and its leaders would do right by Nigerians, this crisis offers an opportunity for the PDP to re-invent itself on the basis of democratic principles and service orientation. Nigerians have borne the incompetence of the party since 1999. And the result is an uninspiring state of the nation by all indices. It is difficult to say today that the country is better run than it was 14 years ago. The ship of state appears rudderless and adrift. Therefore, PDP should strive to resolve its crisis so that the country is not drawn into it and Nigerians are not made to pay a greater price of avoidable destabilisation. The party must ask itself why the locus of power in it is so fluid and contradictory. Between the party chairman, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, the President and the Governors, it is not clear who is in charge of party affairs. The effect is that the party is enfeebled, existing not as a platform for nation-building ideas but only as a vehicle to power and wealth, and therefore embroiled in endlessly simmering power tussles. The party has run its affairs without a coherent idea and has hardly articulated any discernible manifesto. This is the time for PDP to re-examine itself, re-discover what it means to be a party for the people and re-invent itself for service to Nigeria in line with the finest ideals of democracy. For the opposition parties, the current crisis in the PDP provides not only cold comfort to scoffers, but offers a window of genuine opportunity for them to show-case alternative values to long suffering Nigerians desperate for real change.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 22:49:20 +0000