There was a time the PDP spoke and Nigeria listened. A time the get together walked like an enormous that owned each hall of energy and each inch of political creativeness. There was a time getting a ticket meant you have been ready to your swearing in. However at present, the PDP strikes like a wounded animal limping, confused, snarling at its personal reflection, uncertain of which course is ahead. The disaster consuming the get together didn’t begin with the current fights, court docket orders, and counter-orders. The decay started the second Goodluck Ebele Jonathan misplaced his reelection bid in 2015 and quietly disappeared.
When a ruling get together loses energy, the rapid accountability of the outgoing president is to change into the daddy of the home. He holds the roof regular in order that the rain of confusion doesn’t destroy the construction. However Jonathan, as a substitute of entering into the function of custodian and rallying level, withdrew into the quiet of Otuoke as if he had by no means led the biggest political get together in Africa. As if he owed it no responsibility to reorganize, rebuild, and even console it. He deserted the get together like a new child dropped on the gate of an orphanage.
A sitting president who simply misplaced an election needs to be the one holding emergency conferences, calming factions, and re-anchoring the get together. As a substitute, PDP leaders have been left to roam like sheep with out shepherd, every claiming authority, every constructing personal empires. The PDP didn’t simply lose energy it misplaced its father. And when the pinnacle withdraws, the physique begins to rot. That was the start of the get together’s freefall.
And the place was Olusegun Obasanjo in all this? The identical Obasanjo who constructed the get together brick by brick, who put in governors like a chess grasp putting items on a board, who wielded the PDP as each sword and defend? The elder statesman who ought to have stepped in as stabilizer, mediator, and guardian? He tore his membership card on stay tv and walked away. Since then he has drifted across the political panorama like a wandering spirit commenting on each downside besides the one he birthed. If anybody ought to have summoned the elders and advised them, This home should not collapse, it was Obasanjo. However he turned his again, claiming neutrality, whereas the home he constructed burned in sluggish movement.
There was a time when PDP didn’t simply win elections, it swallowed them. The get together was so highly effective that its main election felt extra vital than the nationwide election itself. As we speak that very same get together can not even conduct a gathering with out police vans ready outdoors
And nothing uncovered that collapse extra brutally than the disgraceful chaos that erupted at Wadata Plaza. What occurred there was not a battle it was a spectacle, a nationwide embarrassment, a carnival of political insanity.
Earlier than dawn, rival factions started mobilizing. Not with concepts, not with technique however with thugs, muscle boys, touts armed with sticks, iron rods, and unrestrained anger. By mid-morning, Wadata Plaza had become a battlefield. Chants rose. Insults flew. Safety males clashed. Males climbed over the fence like burglars. Doorways have been kicked open. Tear gasoline stuffed the air. Aged get together members choked and staggered out, holding their chests. A specific lady was hit so violently with a rod that your complete left aspect of her face collapsed into swelling and blood. Others have been dragged on the ground. Folks ran. Folks screamed. Celebration officers hid inside places of work as if inside bunkers.
And all this occurred on the headquarters of a celebration that after boasted of being the largest in Africa.
The PDP is sort of a mansion that after hosted kings however now leaks from each nook as a result of no one remembered to keep up the roof. When a home decays from inside, even strangers can odor it from the gate.
The disgrace was not simply within the violence,it was within the symbolism. A celebration preventing itself with such brutality has no ethical authority to battle anybody else. A celebration that can’t safe its personal entrance can not safe a nation. A celebration whose members want tear gasoline masks to attend conferences has no enterprise asking Nigerians to belief it once more.
After which the query Nigerians whispered however have been too afraid to ask out loud, the place did Nyesom Wike get the type of safety he got here with? Who licensed that stage of present of pressure? Who cleared the deployment? Who offered the autos, the lads, the weapons? Wike didn’t get up and command that type of operation from his bed room. Energy backed him. The type of energy that doesn’t come from a mere ministerial portfolio. The type of energy that offers you confidence to carry closely armed safety brokers to a celebration secretariat as if invading hostile territory. The type of energy that tells you do what you need we are going to defend you.
Wike strikes like a person who is aware of somebody in Abuja will clear up behind him. No one brings that stage of pressure into Wadata except they’re sure the implications have already been cancelled.
And it wasn’t simply safety brokers. He got here with thugs. Employed muscle tissues. Males paid to intimidate, beat, brutalize, and silence. PDP members have been crushed in entrance of their very own secretariat not by outsiders however by their very own. This isn’t politics. That is the collapse of political tradition. That is the rot that grows when a celebration has no father, no chief, no ethical centre.
That is what occurs when Jonathan retreats into silence. Jonathan didn’t simply step apart. He left a vacuum so vast that ambition rushed in like floodwater.
That is what occurs when Obasanjo abandons his home. That is what occurs when elders sit on the fence. That is what occurs when ambition turns into a illness.
Obasanjo constructed the home, locked the door, walked away with the important thing after which pretended he not acknowledged the constructing. The PDP is bleeding. And never frivolously deeply, internally, from self-inflicted wounds. The get together is now a home the place each room is preventing one other room. Governors towards ex-governors. Chairmen towards chairmen. Energy blocs towards themselves. Everybody needs to be king. Nobody needs to construct the dominion. But Nigeria desperately wants a reputable opposition. Democracy collapses when authorities has no counterweight. A weak PDP shouldn’t be good for APC. It isn’t good for Labour. It isn’t good for the nation. When the principle opposition get together turns into a circus, governance turns into a one-man present. Energy turns into reckless. Accountability sleeps.
If the PDP should survive, it should first admit its reality.This disaster shouldn’t be about faction. It’s about fatherlessness. Till the get together confronts the vacuum created by its personal deserted management, it’s going to proceed to thrash at the hours of darkness. The collapse of PDP shouldn’t be a thriller. It’s a warning. A celebration with out elders will all the time change into a playground for thugs. A celebration with out construction will all the time change into a battlefield.
A celebration with out reality will all the time die from the lies it tells itself. If PDP doesn’t rebuild itself now actually, boldly, and from the muse historical past will bear in mind it not because the get together that after dominated Nigeria, however because the get together that destroyed itself with its personal palms.
Ultimately, the PDP shouldn’t be dying as a result of its enemies are sturdy, it’s dying as a result of these entrusted with its legacy selected cowardice when braveness was required. Jonathan retreated when the get together wanted a backbone. Obasanjo deserted the very home he constructed. Wike has change into a political wrecking ball backed by powers too timid to indicate their faces, and days at Wadata Plaza, the so-called largest get together in Africa couldn’t even defend its personal members from thugs, tear gasoline, and humiliation. What occurred there was not only a disaster it was a confession. As a result of a celebration that can’t govern itself can not govern a rustic. A nation can not rise when its leaders refuse to face. The place there is no such thing as a self-discipline, democracy turns into theatre. And Nigeria deserves higher than recycled chaos paraded as management.
Wadata Plaza was once an emblem of energy. It now looy like a criminal offense scene with demarcated barb wires. Celebration members have been working for security in a constructing that after dictated the way forward for Nigeria.
When the largest opposition get together turns into a circus, the entire nation turns into the viewers. And each democracy the place residents change into spectators as a substitute of individuals is already in bother.
Criticism is patriotism. Fact is rescue. Silence is consent to decay. And if the PDP can not confront its personal rot, then historical past will write the decision with out sentiment,the get together was not defeated by an election it was defeated by its personal silence, its personal ego, and its personal refusal to decide on nation over clique. A celebration that can’t govern itself can not govern Nigeria. Nigeria doesn’t want good leaders. Nigeria wants current leaders. The PDP misplaced its method the second its leaders selected to vanish when the home caught hearth.
The publish A party that lost its fathers and found its chaos, by Stephanie Shaakaa appeared first on Vanguard News.
