Ekiti 2022 as PDP 2023’s Albatross By Yemi Arokodare

Is PDP Jinxed? This piece will try to do justice to this vexed question. But before I proceed, let me address the latest from the party on the belated reconciliation committee set up to manage a deliberately compromised process. Since the party did not deem it fit to tap from the wisdom of these eminent personalities in the committee to unite and assess the capacity of the aspirants before the primaries, it should not have troubled them to embark on a fruitless exercise. Our respected leader, His Excellency, David Bonaventure Mark, knows Ekiti State like the palm of his hand. Such an eminent leader could have been given a discreet responsibility by the party to help in preparing a confidential report about Ekiti.

The new PDP leadership led by Sen. Iyorchia Ayu cannot deliberately gamble away the party’s opportunity to win Ekiti, hurriedly set up and conclude an Appeal Panel that failed to listen to the aggrieved and now think they can disturb these great men and women of the party to indulge in subterfuge. Like I said in a recent statement wrongly attributed by the media to Chief Segun Oni, “it is an open secret in the Ekiti political circle that the PDP ticket procured through Fayose is a duplicate copy of the APC ticket because both were sponsored from one camp.” Is the party asking the David Mark led reconciliation committee to strengthen further the bid of APC to win while the wheeler-dealer behind the travesty has cashed out?

Back to the crux of the matter: The All Progressives Congress (APC) had done everything wrongly to end up as a one-term party in Aso Rock in 2019. It quickly unravelled in less than four years in the saddle, but the alternative, the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), wasted a good chance, left it late and bungled a good opportunity. Many political analysts had concluded that the PDP failed to build the right momentum into 2019, starting from the off-cycle elections of 2018.

The situation in the country has grown far worse and becoming depressingly hopeless, yet the PDP has not shown it has the strategy and intelligence to win in 2023. It is looking like the party is about to repeat failure. Unfortunately, the same scenario that made it difficult for the PDP to build the right momentum into 2019 is about to repeat itself. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. As it evolved four years ago, it has started again from Ekiti.

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In 2014 PDP fielded a popular candidate who came late into the race from the Labour Party. His name is Ayodele Fayose. Even though the PDP had Aso Rock at the time, the party leadership was meticulous and deliberate in helping Fayose win the primary. They later pacified other aspirants who were in control of the party’s structures. Fayose was popular with the people but less in the party, and he was without the internal enabling reach. But Wadata came to his rescue, and he won big for the party. The control of party structures is usually a never-ending battle among different political camps. It is not a validation of public popularity outside of the party, and there is nothing democratic about this control.

To show that it is a common strategy in politics to help a famous person win, Gov Willie Obiano repeated the same process in Anambra State. Prof. Charles Soludo had no chance in hell to win the APGA primaries. But Obiano knew he ran the risk of losing without a candidate that is popular with the people. Without sounding immodest, Soludo’s popularity was significant enough to be Nigeria’s President if we knew what we were doing. He won big for APGA.

In the faraway United States of America, Donald Trump had become the enfant terrible of US politics. The Democrats and the establishment were determined to make Trump a one-term President. Bernie Sanders had entrenched himself as the candidate to beat in the DNC Primaries, but political pundits were unanimous; he had no chance against Trump because of his radical left ideology. The establishment turned to the moderate Joe Biden; they got Elizabeth Warren to stay in the race to divide the votes of Sanders. They helped Biden win, and he succeeded in making Trump a one-term President.

In 2018, PDP had a great prospect of retaining Ekiti State. But there was a rabble-rousing wheeler-dealer in charge. Fayose bullied the party and intimidated delegates to produce his deputy against a formidable Dayo Adeyeye. The popularity of Adeyeye and the incumbency factor could have been a walk in the park for the PDP. The party lost a beautiful opportunity to retain Ekiti because of the greed and erratic politics of one man. If PDP had ridden on a victory wave from Ekiti into Osun, its margin of victory in that 2018 election would have avoided a rerun. Did Fayose even support PDP in the Osun 2018?

The only reason the APC has remained in the unwilling consideration of the people for 2023 is that the main opposition party, the PDP, has lost the rigour to decipher the underlying intrigues in local politics. That is why the Ayu-led National Working Committee cannot see through the deception of Ayo Fayose. Here is a man who sold aspiration to six willing persons in his camp at N2m each and yet went ahead to pick an unwilling person who publicly told everyone that he was dragged into the race. Unfortunately, Chairman Ayu ridiculously indulged Fayose, who was not an aspirant and ran riot on the entire process. Sickening.

The PDP used to be the master of the game with the presence of mind. That was why they knew that Fayose could win Ekiti in 2014 even when newly returned from the Labour Party. Chairman Ayu is the administrative President of the PDP today and should have been more interested in the party’s victory in 2023, starting from Ekiti. The party compromised its neutrality by repeatedly foisting Gov Udom Emmanuel on the Ekiti process. He came as a partial umpire and compromised the party’s guidelines to favour his friend, Fayose. The videos of the show of shame that transpired are everywhere.

We have come to a point where Chairman Ayu must explain to party members and the entire world why he allowed Gov Udom to go for the second exercise in Ekiti after his absence and failure in the first led to the botched ad-hoc delegates election that was nullified thanks to the excellent job done by the Nwodo Appeal Panel. Instead of excluding Gov Udom from such exercises on the strength of the party’s Electoral Guidelines for Primary that he violated, the NWC chose to reward a blatant abuse of its own rules with more responsibility.

Section 45 (a) Part VI under the General Provisions of the Electoral Guidelines for Primary says: “Any officer or member of the party who fails, refuses or neglects to carry out his duties about these guidelines on the general conduct of the primary elections or who obstructs, defies, or in any manner hinders, impedes or subverts the implementation or success of these guidelines is guilty of gross misconduct and shall be brought before the National Disciplinary Committee of the Party for disciplinary action.” Why is it that Chairman Ayu cannot trust any other PDP Governor except Gov Udom Emmanuel to conduct the two exercises in Ekiti State when it is evident that Fayose had conducted Gov Udom’s 2019 Primaries? Shameful.

APC did not fool around when it wanted to win Nigeria in 2015 and Ekiti in 2018. Fayemi did not visit Fayose a day after the APC primaries or ever before he succeeded. A few days before the Ekiti election, Fayose was in “severe pain.” because of what the APC did to him, drawing public sympathy. But the pictures that surfaced in public from Fayose’s visit to Fayemi after the recent PDP primaries to many discerning observers was a betrayal of the party’s optic to win. This unthoughtful visit, which also involved Gov Udom, was after a job well executed to produce a walk-in-the-park ticket for the APC. Fayose will never allow Bisi Kolawole to campaign, just like he did with his deputy in 2018. For the record, the PDP ticket is a wasted opportunity with Fayose.

I’m privy to what the party did in 2018 when it secretly sent a team to Osun to assess the party’s chances, the aspirants and capacity to win. The party acted on the confidential report produced by the team. PDP’s immediate past Financial Secretary, Abdullahi Maibasira, sourced this team. The party won Osun State, but a little slip and later a rigged judicial process denied Demola Adeleke the governorship seat. That is what Ayu’s NWC ought to have done if they are serious and want to be practical about the Rescue and Rebuild mantra.

Less than 380 days to the general elections, it is sad to imagine that the APC, after wrecking the entire country, could still nurse the prospect of 8 more years. This is not far fetched; the PDP is still far removed from the reality of time. If the party could, at this crucial point, indulge traitors and fail to assess the electability profile of aspirants in Ekiti, nobody should expect much in 2023. An expected bad showing in Ekiti will also affect the chances of the PDP in Osun and in 2023. If the PDP cannot take both or one, the momentum towards 2023 will be uneventful. The same architect of 2018 poor showing leading into the last general elections is again at it.

▪︎ Yemi Arokodare, Member House of Representatives (2003-2007),
Federal Commissioner Public Complaints commission (NIGERIAN OMBUDSMAN) 2015-2021 writes from Ado-Ekiti