With Dodgy ‘Open Ticket,’ PDP Games 2023

 IN THE ARENA

The opposition Peoples Democratic Party has opened a huge internal trust gap, endangering its comeback bid by ditching its North-South rotation of presidency template ahead of the 2023 election, writes Louis Achi

Fundamentally, political parties are essential institutions of democracy. By competing in elections, parties offer citizens and members opportunities for political participation and a choice in governance. While in opposition they can hold governments accountable.

Parties also have self-fashioned constitutions that guide their trajectories. But when lack of principle and greed take centre stage, these parties tend to be consumed. This scenario clearly seems to be what is generating strong headwinds buffeting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and forcing it into unseemly tailspin.

Ahead of the party’s presidential primary election slated for May 28 2022, the Governor Samuel Ortom-led zoning committee had thrown the ticket open, ditching the presidential zoning model captured by the party’s constitution. Ortom’s later curious attempt at backtracking from his committee’s position only gave the controversial set up an unintended Nollywood dimension.

On April 5, the Governor Ortom-led 37-man committee set up by the party to decide the zoning or otherwise of its presidential ticket reached unanimous decision to throw the ticket open to aspirants from all the zones of the country.

Sources in the zoning committee, who attended the meeting at the Benue State Government Lodge, in Abuja, disclosed that the presidential ticket had been thrown open to all the 13 aspirants that had bought presidential nomination forms.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, after the meeting chairman of the committee chair and Governor of Benue State, Ortom, revealed, “We have just finished our meeting. After we rose from our meeting last week; today we decided that we would meet and by the Grace of God we have unanimously adopted a position that will be sent to the NEC of our party that appointed us.

“The good news for our teaming supporters of the PDP and Nigerians is that we have resolved and every one of us, the 37 members, unanimously adopted the position that we are going to present to NEC.”

It could be recalled that stakeholders of the party had taken different positions on zoning, with the National Chairman of the party, Senator Iyorchia Ayu said had come to stay.

Sources revealed that the Ortom’s committee affirmed that even though zoning is part of the party’s constitution, it decided to throw open the presidential contest due to exigency of time and the fact that they are in the opposition.

“It is too late to stop aspirants from contesting and because our ultimate goal is to win, the majority of us have agreed that the race be thrown open to all. We are going for a zero-zoning arrangement,” the source reportedly stated.

It will be recalled that while hosting Rivers State Governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike in Makurdi, Benue State capital, recently, Ortom had proclaimed that “On Southern presidency I stand.”

Sources revealed to THISDAY that former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, Kawo Baraje, and Senator Abdul Ningi had favoured the zoning of the presidential ticket to the North.

The trio were said to have argued that the best decision for the Ortom’s committee was to zone the presidential ticket to the North or alternatively in the interest of fair play and transparency, throw open the ticket to all the 13 aspirants that had purchased the presidential forms.

It was also learnt that they argued that the PDP ticket since 1999 had been in the Southern part of the country, where former President Olusegun Obasanjo had it for eight years, followed by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, from the North, who died in office about three years into his tenure. Former President Goodluck Jonathan, from the south, held office from May 5, 2010 to May 29, 2015.

However, members of the committee from the South had argued that prior to the 2019 presidential election, the Senator Ike Ekweremadu-led committee had officially announced the zoning of the PDP presidential candidate to the North. They argued that it was on the basis of the zoning arrangement that Atiku, Tambuwal, Saraki and others contested and there was no single Southerner that contested in the Port Harcourt presidential convention.

But a key point conveniently glossed over in the unfolding development is the fact that the PDP’s Constitution specifies zoning of the president as a cardinal point of its being. Several warnings on this count have come from the South, including from Ohanaeze Ndigbo.

A firm advocate of Southern presidency and former Commissioner of Information, Edo State, Prince Kassim Afegbua, cut to the heart of the matter by insisting that throwing the 2023 presidential position open for all PDP members offends the party’s constitution and the democratic principles of equity and fairness.

According to him, seven powerful members of the PDP who contributed to the ‘death’ of the PDP in 2015 with their departure because of zoning are the ones who have now returned to say that zoning is no longer important.

In his further reaction to the controversial open-ticket scenario, Afegbua said the PDP constitution contains clear provisions for power rotation between regions of the nation to reflect democratic principles of equity, justice, and fairness.

Afegbua’s argument is that following the eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner, with a possible election of another northerner, will offend the spirit of equity and fairness upon which the country’s, as well as the PDP’s, power sharing arrangement is premised.

PDP had claimed that the zoning arrangement would make power to rotate between the North and South every eight years. Proponents of zoning have argued that since Buhari has done eight years in APC, the interest of the North has been taken care of.

Afegbua also argued that those ignoring the constitutional provision to champion the non-zoning of the ticket are not being completely honest, given that as recent as 2019, the party reserved the contest for its ticket to its northern members out of respect for the same zoning arrangement the individuals are claiming to be ignorant of.

He highlighted the 2015 defections of the likes of Atiku Abubakar, Bukola Saraki, and Aminu Tambuwal from the PDP to the APC over dissatisfaction with the purported refusal of former President Goodluck Jonathan to honor the zoning arrangement.

His words: “If the party has now decided that it no longer wants to zone positions, then it should expunge the provision on power rotation from its constitution. This is to prevent legal complications if a dissatisfied member decides to take it to court over its failure to live up to the prescriptions of its own constitution.”

Watched carefully and perhaps derisively by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the emerging consensus is that the PDP might naively self-destruct, handing the next presidency to APC, despite its questionable moral burden.