In spite of the overwhelming victory of its presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, the Peoples Democratic Party lost many seats in the National Assembly, besides the defeat it suffered in some states, OLUSOLA FABIYI writes Members of the Peoples Democratic Party, both at the national and state levels are very proud of their party. It is a party, they say will rule Nigeria for several years. They, however, did not say whether that assumption would be determined if the party performed or not. The erstwhile National Chairman of the party, Vincent Ogbulafor, was the first person to make the thinking of the leadership of the party known to Nigerians. On Thursday, April 17, 2008, he said members of the party\u2019s kitchen cabinet were optimistic that the party would rule Nigeria for the next 60 years.<\/span><\/p>\n Arguing that the PDP was large enough to accommodate every Nigerian, Ogbulafor likened the party to an unswerving Boeing 747 aircraft. He said the opposition parties were like small aircraft with propeller engines. He said he would feel fulfilled if all Nigerians abandoned the opposition to join the PDP. This, he said, would be a positive development for the country if the PDP became its only political party. He also dismissed claims that the party had been weakened and factionalised, saying it remained strong and united.<\/span><\/p>\n He said, \u201cWhen I hear people say that our umbrella is torn, I just laugh because I know that the umbrella is as strong as ever. And I expect that every Nigerian will soon join the PDP. I don\u2019t care if Nigeria becomes a one-party state. If we succeed in bringing all the states under the control of the PDP, we would have achieved a lot.\u201d Ironically, Ogbulafor did not know what lay ahead of him let alone his political party, if what happened some months later was anything to go by. On Thursday, May 14, 2010, Ogbulafor was asked to step aside. His resignation came in the wake of mounting pressure from the Presidency and the PDP governors over the N104m corruption charges brought against him by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission. Before his resignation, smooth-talking Ogbulafor had talked tough, and insisted that he would not resign as no court had pronounced him guilty.<\/span><\/p>\n It was with such arrogance that the party went into the just concluded general elections, especially the presidential and governorship elections. Nevertheless, its presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, who is considered to be an enormously lucky man, still triumphed irrespective of the odds against him. Despite his entrance into the political circles as a rooky just before the commencement of the party\u2019s presidential primaries, he went ahead to beat the likes of former military dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retd.) at the PDP primaries. The acclaimed evil genius had the control of the reins of power for eight years without accountability. Also, the likes of former vice-president Atiku Abubakar, who was considered a political juggernaut having been able to outmanoeuvre his co-travellers in the ill-fated zoning voyage to emerge the consensus candidate of the North, as well his platform \u2013 the Mallam Adamu Ciroma-led Northern Political Leaders Forum, were reduced to mere spectators during the primaries.<\/span><\/p>\n Throughout the period of the campaign, Atiku, Ciroma and others considered as power brokers in the North did not openly identify with the aspiration of Jonathan. Rather, they were busy trying to broker a deal that would produce a consensus candidate between the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and that of the Congress for Political Change, Gen. Muhamadu Buhari(retd.). Their calculation was that if the two Northerners worked together, Jonathan would be effortlessly whitewashed at the poll. It was, therefore, a great miracle when the President surmounted all the moves by his traducers to emerge victorious.<\/span><\/p>\n The victory ballet was however interspersed in many states of the federation as people\u2019s power shred the party\u2019s umbrella. Thus, states, which were hitherto considered the traditional homes of the party, fell into the hands of \u2018rascals.\u2019 It was a defeat that the party did not expect. These states include Imo, Nasarawa, Ogun, Oyo while Zamfara, which the state got through defection of the state governor, Alhaji Mahmud Shinkafi was also taken.<\/span><\/p>\n Between 2007 and now, the PDP has lost 10 states either through election or pronouncement by courts. It was the courts, which ruled after the 2007 governorship elections, that the PDP did not win the states of Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Edo and Anambra. While the courts said the PDP robbed the ACN of Ekiti, Osun and Edo States, it also ruled that the same party, through unconstitutional means, took Ondo away from the Labour Party and used the same means to deny the All Progressives Grand Alliance of Anambra State. So, when the courts took away these states, the PDP-led governments there were sent packing.<\/span><\/p>\n The case of the party in the South-West was considered very pathetic. With the return of two states to the ACN, the PDP promised to win the remaining states of Ogun, Lagos and Oyo states. The events that followed showed that the party and its leaders there, including former president Olusegun Obasanjo, were merely dreaming as the ACN used its broom to completely sweep them away from the region. Even in Imo and Nasarawa, the party was unable to contain the opposition as presented by both APGA and the CPC respectively. The party however gained Kano State, which it lost to the All Nigerian Peoples Party in 2003.<\/span><\/p>\n Several reasons have been adduced for the performance of the party, especially in the South-West. A leader of the party, who just returned from prison after serving two year jail term for corruption, Chief Olabode George, said the decision of the Yoruba PDP primaries of the South-West geo-political zone to vote en mass for the ACN in the National Assembly, governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections in the just concluded general elections, was a direct protest against former president Olusegun Obasanjo and the PDP governors.<\/span><\/p>\n George, a former Deputy National Chairman of the party, specifically blamed Obasanjo for not fulfilling his electoral promises to the people of the zone, in the areas of social infrastructure such as deplorable road networks in the zone, including perceived mismanagement of both human and material resources throughout the eight years of his reign as a civilian president.<\/span><\/p>\n He said, \u201cIn fact, the Yoruba people were expecting that all the network of roads in bad shapes ought to have been rehabilitated or re-constructed before the expiration of his eight-year rule as civilian president. But the Yoruba people are not foolish, they are very deep thinkers because we have a very long history with education and education makes people very easy to govern.\u201d He said Obasanjo was portraying the image of being bigger than everybody, rather than helping his own people.\u201d The former president, he said made some promises to the people of the region in 2003, while canvassing for the co-operation and support of the people; that if the people could follow them to the centre stage of the nation\u2019s politics that the regime was going to do some things for them. He said Obasanjo failed to live up to expectations as he refused to implement the promises.<\/span><\/p>\n But beyond the name-calling, the leadership of the party is still mourning the loss as lamented by its National Working Committee. \u201cThe loss in these states is a sacrifice we have to make for our democracy,\u201d said the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Prof. Rufai Alkali, who added that the party also lost \u201cseveral seats in the National Assembly.\u201d He promised that the party would return to the drawing board and reconcile its aggrieved members.<\/span><\/p>\n But the factional National Chairman of the Progressive Peoples Alliance, Lisa Olu Akerele, disagreed. For example, he said the party lost in some states, especially in Imo because the electorate was no longer docile as the people now voted out non-performing politicians. \u201cThe elections have taught us that we cannot toy with the electorate by waiting till the last moment to storm them with transformers, bags of rice and cartons of money,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n He said the main lesson of the 2011 elections was that when a politician assumed office, he should commence work immediately knowing that power resides in the people and not in the politician who only holds office in trust for the people and not for political jobbers who deceive their principals. Akerele said that with the current wave of democracy across the country, it was apparent that the era of rigged elections was over. \u201cPower ultimately resides in the people, whose perception of a performing politician is the provision of developmental projects in their constituencies and not by the high profile advertisements placed in international mass media or by the number of books published,\u201d he maintained.<\/span><\/p>\n