Having committed the mortal sin of refusing a Southern candidate in the 2023 presidential election, an immoral violation of the principles of zoning, the PDP is dying a slow death, for the wages of sin is death. Having betrayed its most consistent support base of the South-South and South-East since 1998, the PDP has lost its soul in the scheme of national politics and it is only a matter of time before the hollow shell of whatever is left of the party collapses. And this collapse is imminent.
The recent gale of defections from Nigeria’s main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has set off a public conversation about the future prospect of Africa’s largest multi-party democracy. The latest defection of the governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oboriwerei, and his predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa, along with the entire party, as well as the democratically elected structure, from top to bottom, has sent shockwaves across the political spectrum, with many people suggesting that Nigeria may just be on the road to a one-party state. This concern is made real by the fact that many other governors and prominent members of the opposition have either pledged their support for the Ahmed Bola Tinubu-led APC presidency, going into the 2027 presidential election, or have indicated their willingness to jump into the ship of the ruling party.
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In their reaction to the unfolding saga on the Nigerian political scene, some prominent intellectuals, activists and politicians have sounded the alarm on what they believe to be the political machination of the opposition into induced coma by President Tinubu and his ruling APC apparatchik, in order to have a smooth sail in the 2027 general elections. Many believe that the opposition is being harassed by anti-corruption agencies into submission, while President Tinubu is also deploying a charm offensive to lure opposition elements to bed, where they are given the kiss of death. For the Tinubu administration that is struggling with a poor public rating of its performance, almost two years into its four-year tenure in office, it doesn’t need to be given a bad name before it is hanged for decimating the opposition, as widely alleged.
However, the decimation of the ranks of the PDP and the disarray within the party has little to do with President Tinubu, as the party is simply dying a slow death arising from a mortal sin it committed in the 2023 presidential election. In the build up to that election, I had written a series of opinion articles warning the PDP to uphold the principle of zoning by fielding a candidate from southern Nigeria, after the eight-year rule of Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner. In a piece titled, “PDP and consequences of sailing against the wind in 2023,” which was written ahead of the primaries of both the APC and PDP in April 2022, I had predicted that, “At a time that elements of the conservative Northern political establishment in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to have resolved to shift presidential power to the South of Nigeria in 2023, the liberal Northern politicians in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seem determined to retain power in the Northern region beyond 2023.
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And it came to pass that indeed the APC fielded a southern candidate in the person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while the PDP headed North with Atiku Abubakar. But in the same piece, I had also warned that if PDP violated the zoning principle, which rotates power between the North and South, going into the 2023 presidential election, the party will not only lose the election but will run into troubled waters that will sink the Titanic of the PDP into oblivion.
Led by President Muhammadu Buhari, the conservative Northern establishment, which has been in firm control of the politics of Nigeria’s largest democratic demography since 2015 when the APC came to power, may have come to the realisation that it cannot hold on to power after eight years without severe consequences for the unity and continuous existence of Nigeria. From all indications, as seen in the near absence of Northern presidential aspirants on its platform, the President Buhari-led APC has clearly settled for a Nigerian president of Southern origin beginning from 2023, when Nigerians will go to the polls to vote for a new president.
“On the other hand, the PDP, with its strongest political support base in the South and minority areas of the North (the Middle Belt), and which is expected to be the most willing to pick its presidential candidate from the region, is looking towards the North for its presidential redemption. Clearly unprepared for a Southern presidency, the PDP is hoping to opportunistically inherit the massive votes of Northern Nigeria by fielding a candidate from the region at a time the APC is looking South. In the thinking of many a PDP stalwart from the South, the interest of the party should be to win the next presidential election by any means possible and not be concerned by the morality of zoning for the purpose of equity, justice and unity. Having been defeated twice in the 2015 and 2019 presidential elections by the APC, which was heavily enamoured on both occasions by the massive votes of Nigeria’s largest voting bloc in the Muslim North, some PDP stalwarts from the South, like members of a defeated army whose officers and men are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, have surrendered to the political supremacy of Northern Nigeria.”
And it came to pass that indeed the APC fielded a southern candidate in the person of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while the PDP headed North with Atiku Abubakar. But in the same piece, I had also warned that if PDP violated the zoning principle, which rotates power between the North and South, going into the 2023 presidential election, the party will not only lose the election but will run into troubled waters that will sink the Titanic of the PDP into oblivion. I wrote, “That the PDP may not sail against the strong wind of the presidency that is blowing South, will be for the party to field a Southern candidate as its candidate in the 2023 presidential election. For the PDP, the 2023 presidential election is not just about “winnability” but actually survival. While the APC is dominant in the North and the PDP’s strongest support base is in the South, the move by the APC to field a Southern candidate in the 2023 presidential election will torpedo the PDP from the region, if the party fields a Northern candidate. And if the PDP goes ahead to sail against the wind in 2023 by fielding a Northern candidate, the ship of the party will capsize, sink into oblivion, as the party will lose in the North and in the South to the APC and go into extinction in post-Buhari Nigeria.”
I have always maintained that Atiku’s ambition, and not Tinubu’s machination, killed the PDP, as it was after Atiku happened to the party that it developed a Wike problem. And having killed the PDP with his immoral ambition, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike is only giving the party a befitting burial by conducting its final rites of passage into oblivion. In the coming weeks and months, the PDP will be further emptied of whatever is left of its membership…
And again it came to pass that PDP’s Atiku Abubakar lost in the North and South to APC’s Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and the party is now being torpedoed from its Southern support base following the emergence of a president of Southern extraction. Having committed the mortal sin of refusing a Southern candidate in the 2023 presidential election, an immoral violation of the principles of zoning, the PDP is dying a slow death, for the wages of sin is death. Having betrayed its most consistent support base of the South-South and South-East since 1998, the PDP has lost its soul in the scheme of national politics and it is only a matter of time before the hollow shell of whatever is left of the party collapses. And this collapse is imminent. This position has been affirmed by no less a person than Ifeanyi Okowa, Atiku’s running mate in the 2023 presidential, who justified his recent defection to the APC on the exigencies of a Southern solidarity with President Tinubu and the need to reconcile with his estranged Southern support base. According to Okowa, “even when we were campaigning, I realised our people were not interested in having another Northerner come into power. But the decision had already been taken at the federal level by the party, and I had been nominated. Still, in retrospect, I now believe I should have gone with the will of my people.”
I have always maintained that Atiku’s ambition, and not Tinubu’s machination, killed the PDP, as it was after Atiku happened to the party that it developed a Wike problem. And having killed the PDP with his immoral ambition, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike is only giving the party a befitting burial by conducting its final rites of passage into oblivion. In the coming weeks and months, the PDP will be further emptied of whatever is left of its membership, as the protracted legal conundrum arising from the struggle for the dying soul of the PDP between Atiku and Wike may result in the party’s inability to field candidates across board going into the 2027 general elections or at best the party will field a weak presidential candidate that will only serve as a placeholder for APC’s President Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through [email protected].
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