THE MAKING OF THE NEW PDP.

THE MAKING OF THE NEW PDP.
Chief Olisa Metuh on Friday April 16th informed Nigerians that the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP, will be adopting this option in the selection of its candidates for the 2019 general election. He said the party has recognised that there is need to end its inglorious past of imposition of candidates by allowing members of the party to directly participate in the selection of its candidates.

According to Metuh and he needs to be quoted for emphasis: “We are going to change our system so that our presidential candidate would be voted by all our party members in the country. It would be done at the ward level, we would no longer elect presidential candidate at the national convention. It would now be for every party member to vote for whoever would be our presidential candidate…it is not going to be restricted to presidential primaries alone, but others like governorship, senatorial, House of Representative and all, everybody would be elected from the ward level.”

On the surface, this is a fantastic proposal and should be supported by all and sundry within the party. PDP since the days of President Olusegun Obasanjo completely departed from the democratic norm of giving party members the authority to elect candidates of the party. Under Obasanjo who had no democratic temperament and would rather encourage subversion of party rules, such that one of his legacies after eight years in power was a damaged party that scoffed at rule of law, but bend to the whims of powerful chieftains. The cascading aftermath was electoral defeat.

However, this is the real issue. 16 years of institutionalised impunity within the party means that there are still those within the PDP who will resist this good intention. Why? They have enjoyed the proceeds of evil for so long, and it has become in quote the norm within the party, to subvert its own laws and impose the will of a few in many cases the will of one man rather than allow majority say. There are people within PDP who from all intents and purposes hate democracy and hate even more any sign of internal party democracy.
This is the issue. And it clearly goes beyond the proclamation of Chief Metuh. To give the party back to the people in a transparent and sincere manner is one sure way of the party regaining lost ground. But will there be sincerity? Is there the political will to do so? Time will tell. It should surprise no one if the revisionist forces in the party who would not tolerate this proposal, find a way to water it down or make it ineffective. The party congresses is the first litmus test. Few days from today, party congress at the chapter level will be conducted. Will the very few allow the people to choose their leaders?

As a matter of fact, had the party not been privatised and had the people been allowed to own it, many of the bad apples that did incredible harm to the party would have long been weeded out. But because of lack of accountability and transparency, the PDP lost its focus and direction.

It became a party of anything goes, immoral, undisciplined and dubious. PDP parade leaders, who claim to have grassroots base, yet are fearful of testing their claims with the people. This is the state of the PDP today, and so Chief Metuh was right in drawing attention to the reforms that would be introduced.

Ideally option A4 is a transparent process that should lift this unwholesome atmosphere of despair and despondency. If adopted it would completely energise the party. It would confer real legitimacy on the party’s representatives. The people would feel empowered. Real leaders and representatives of the people will emerge. It will enable the party to be in a position to compete in any election.

Effectively, this means the era when some party chieftains sit somewhere out of sight, and cut private deals to determine who becomes what is over. Let the people decide, after all this is the only way the PDP’s slogan of power to the people can have real meaning. As a matter of fact, many progressive PDP members had long wished for this kind of reform.

Good as this proposal is, and this cannot be said enough, it is the political will and desire of the party to bring option A4 to reality that will eventually determine the future of PDP as a viable party that Nigerians can trust again to wield power at the centre. The PDP has two choices: to prolong its agony and wanderings in the wilderness of defeat or to reform itself and become formidable again. Either each way, the adoption and use or lack of use of Option A4 represents one route over the other. The choice is that simple.

Isaac Nobenz