PDP! The hemorrhaging opposition party.

We can safely deduce that the party was ill prepared to be an opposition, at least the target was to be in power for 60years according to the permutation of one of their stalwarts. The dream of 60years was cut short by the 2015 night mare. The party had it coming though, the then President, who perhaps is a good man with the best of intentions, was lacking the strength of character to rein in the hacks around him, which led to a feeding frenzy of monumental corruption also coupled with the north/south debacle of rotational presidency.


This provided a veritable tool for the then opposition to deploy perhaps the most efficient political propaganda machine ever marshaled in the history of Nigerian politics. They were unrelenting and ruthless, APC is perhaps more effective as an opposition rather than actual governance. Let just say both parties were ill prepared for the roles they both find themselves today.

My focus today is on the PDP as an opposition party, their performance is perhaps the most colourless and lackluster in the history of global politics. With every known indices, from economy, security, unemployment, exchange rate etc. all going south. One would have thought that the party would have latched on to the obvious failures of the incumbent govt, to marshal out alternate policies and galvanize Nigerians. Rather what we see, is random and uncoordinated out bursts from different power brokers with the intent of self promotion. The perennial Presidential candidate who perhaps could have provided some sort of leadership, had been convalescing in Dubai, only to come back to push his presidential ambition once again. The Chief financier from the south south, who is now hell bent on removing the Party Chairman, is now becoming an albatross rather than an asset to the party. The only individual who has been consistent and vibrant has been the Senate minority leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe.

The mortal body blows now coming from the APC, with a slew of Governors, BOT members, House of rep members all decamping to APC, shows all is not well within the party. In all fairness, the APC have been accused of using both threats and inducement to lure PDP members to their camp. Whatever the case maybe, it shows the party is fractured with a lot of people of little moral fiber in high places. However all hope is not lost, there is still time to muster a coordinated opposition and put the incumbent government on their toes. All they need to do is jettison personal ambition and ego, put the interest of the party and in deed the nation ahead of self.

The Bukola Saraki led reconciliation team has started well, but it goes beyond that, all I see is an attempt to massage and pacify egos. A think tank should be set up within the party to marshal out alternatives on policies and give the party a sense of purpose rather than just being a special purpose vehicle for winning elections. This will perhaps endear the younger professionals, who are torn between joining either of the two behemoths or starting afresh in an unknown party. The latter being case of playing catch up against those who already have a 22 year head start in the political arena.

On a final note, with twenty two years into the present democratic experiment, our political parties should evolve from being a mere amalgam of people interested in winning elections, to people who share the same ideology. For example we can have political parties that are more to the left, big government and socialist in nature or those more to the right with a private sector led mind set. The Obasanjo era, which arguable gave us our highest GDP growth rate and a growing middle class was largely driven by a right leaning ideology of private sector led growth. This I suggest the PDP to perhaps return to and come out boldly as the ideology of the party.

Oladapo Kasumu

Public Affairs Analyst, writes from Lagos. Oladapo.kasumu@gmail.com