2015: THE END OF PDP AS WE KNOW IT AND JONATHAN

The implosion of the self acclaimed largest political party in Africa, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in less than three years to the all important 2015 could have taken only the political neophytes by surprise. And it did take some otherwise knowledgeable “veteran politicians by surprise” going by the “Suntai look” on their faces when the rug was pulled off their feet at the venue of the PDP special convention at the Eagle Square when the “New PDP”, members staged a walkout from the president and the old PDP.

A panicky President Goodluck Jonathan has to quickly began to mend fences, calling a meeting of all the governors, but it remains to be seen how he can pacify them even if he sacks the national chairman of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, because in truth the aggrieved governors are not really bordered about Tukur, they are after the big prize-PRESIDENCY. These guys do not want Jonathan to seek re-election and if he must he has to run under a truly destroyed PDP. And they can achieve their aim one way or the other, unless the president changes his political strategists. The walkout should have been smelled days ahead of the convention, but they are naïve to see it. Now they have not only displayed their incompetence but has also made the president look weak and vulnerable. The big question is, what can Jonathan do to pacify the north? Nothing can pacify the north except the president throws his hands up in surrender and back out of the 2015 race. I like the way Benue State politician and elder statesman , Shuwan( hope I got the spelling right) puts it when he said recently that the crisis in the PDP and the insecurity in the country was because of Jonathan’s second term ambition. He said once Jonathan renounces that ambition, the PDP and the country will becomes as “ cool as refrigerator “. That is the real reason for all the brouhaha in the PDP and not the old man, Tukur.

That said, it is however unfair to arm twist Jonathan over his second term ambition, especially by governors that did everything under the sun including rigging to get their own second term in 2011. Besides I do know that there are those who claimed that the president has been sworn in two times and that his contesting in 2015 will be a violation of the constitution, but it appears many do not want to follow that legal route and would rather the president declare that he would not run, or destroy the PDP instead. I believe that our democracy will be better served if Jonathan is allowed to contest following the consent of the Supreme Court( I am sure it will get there before 2015), and he is perhaps defeated. An incumbent president has never been defeated in Nigeria’s history. It would put the country at par with Ghana where incumbents have been defeated in the past or the party of the seating president defeated by the opposition candidate. However if Nigerians say that they are satisfied with Jonathan’s performance, so be it. I have said it before that the chances of Jonathan’s re-election is still very high especially if the opposition parties did not present a candidate that commands respect and acceptability nationwide.