Azubuike Ishiekwene: Tukur and the making of PDP’s funeral

by  Azubuike Ishiekwene

pdp_nec_meeting

The PDP may continue to deceive itself, but it’s unlikely that a confidence vote on Tukur will cure the party of its current poisoning. It’s a congenital problem.

The chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, 80-something-year-old Bamanga Tukur, has vowed that he will not relinquish his chair, even at gunpoint. Why should he leave when he has spent only one of his four years in office? Tukur believes that there are people in the party who, from the get-go, were not ready to give him a fair chance to do his job. It’s not about capacity or competence. It’s vendetta.

His foes will fight to the finish. They are not prepared to bury the hatchet from the deeply rancorous primaries that unexpectedly produced him last year. Confidence vote or not his enemies would be happier to see the party dead and buried than accept the leadership of its seventh chairman in 15 years.

Treachery and politics go hand in hand. In the politics of PDP chairmanship, however, treachery is everything. Since former president Olusegun Obasanjo shafted the party’s first chairman, Solomon Lar, in a power struggle, every successive occupant of the position has reigned at the pleasure of at least one of the two most influential power blocs – the presidency or the governors.

Surprisingly, Tukur, who himself was a former governor of the old Gongola State (now Taraba and Adamawa states), has been carrying on as if his political survival depends more on the fact of his grey hair than on his capacity to find a common ground between the blocs. I laugh each time I read his angry threat that he would never resign. Such tantrums may frighten pupils in his village school in Jada, but an administrator of Tukur’s standing ought to know that he can only continue to maintain a hard line at his own peril. A politician who is truly in charge does not need life support from confidence votes.

In a presidency as weak and confused as President Goodluck Jonathan’s, Tukur needs more than the support of Aso Rock and useless confidence votes to be useful to himself and serviceable to his party.

He must go back home where his problem started. It’s not an easy road. Those who know his state governor Murtala Nyako describe him as a master of the zero-sum game. Not only does he want it all, he’ll pay any price to have and keep it all. The root of his problem with Tukur – or with anyone he thinks might threaten his suzerainty in Yola – is that he wants to retain the local party structure to guarantee the succession of his son, Navy Commander Murtala Nyako, as governor. Interestingly, this is exactly what Tukur also wants for his own son Awwal.

From the day Tukur entered the race last year, therefore, the battle was joined. The events that followed, notably Tukur’s resounding defeat during the North-East zonal congress for the party’s chair, were a fallout of the power play. The presidency, desperate to dispense political IOUs and neutralize competing interests, threw Tukur a lifeline. In typical PDP fashion, the loser, Tukur, emerged the winner. But his misery remained. Rather than try to mend fences and heal the wounds caused by the tainted process through which he emerged, he went on revenge, unilaterally dissolving the state executive of the party. After that, he moved against perceived enemies in the national executive.

He was, of course, banking on Aso Rock, when anyone with half an eye can see that Jonathan has enough problems of his own. So, while the party is barely able to pay the rent for its national secretariat and staff salaries after governors who were bankrolling it pulled the plug since March, the chairman has been strutting the stage, vowing to hang on to power till the end. What’s the point hanging onto a straw?

If Africa’s largest party is really interested in redeeming itself – which frankly does not appear to be in the interest of weary voters right now – then its chairman must tackle his demons head on: he must step down or the party will go down with him. Two of the biggest problems facing the party today are partly or directly his fault. One is the Olagunsoye Oyinlola case; and two, Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s suspension from the PDP, which may yet be the last straw.

His decision to replace Oyinlola with an acting national secretary when the governors had advised that the party should use the window of a pending appeal to find political settlement further divided and alienated PDP’s South-West base. It left the ego of Jonathan’s father and former president Obasanjo deeply bruised. Now Jonathan, meeker than the prodigal son, is in a desperate attempt to repair his father’s damaged ego.

Tukur it was who also pushed Amaechi over the edge. A pro-Tukur governor confided in a source on Wednesday that the announcement of the suspension of Amaechi and Governor Aliyu Wamakko even before any charges had been laid against them took the party by surprise. The governors had suggested a different approach, only for a statement to be issued announcing the suspension. Jonathan had to personally lift Wamakko’s suspension, but the damage had been done. The party was forced to swallow a very bitter medicine.

The PDP may continue to deceive itself, but it’s unlikely that a confidence vote on Tukur will cure the party of its current poisoning. It’s a congenital problem.

Unless – and until – the party finds the courage to deal with the malaise afflicting its leadership very quickly, the ongoing crisis may not only be the inevitable problem of old age, it may, in fact, be a terminal disease. If Tukur does not care, then Jonathan, the real party leader who ought to care but appears confused and absent, must be prepared to supervise the party’s funeral in a few months.

Let The Dead Rest In Peace

I don’t get the point about the back and forth over whether or not Governor Rotimi Amaechi and his wife paid a condolence visit on Dame Patience Jonathan after her foster mother’s death in July. After the first lady said how pained she was that the Amaechis did not condole with her, photographs of the first lady and Amaechi’s wife in mourning and extracts of condolence messages by the Rivers State government were published online.

Then, the story changed: the Amaechis did not come in person to mourn with the first lady. I think we’ve had enough of this shenanigan, Madam. Let the dead rest in peace.

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Read this story in the Leadership Newspapers
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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