PDP: Wike, Atiku Play The Undertakers

The protracted leadership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) poses serious threats to the cohesion and stability of the main opposition party. The internecine feud, which was triggered by disagreements over the party’s 2023 presidential nominations, has continued to smoulder. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and incumbent Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike are the two arrowheads in the dogfight.

The duo had fought tooth and nail alongside 10 other aspirants for the party’s 2023 presidential ticket. And Atiku had, at the eleventh hour, deployed an old trick in the playbook to clinch the ticket. But a badly bruised Wike was still willing to play the second fiddle as Atiku’s running mate all the same. With the party’s presidential ticket in the pouch, the former vice president had visited Wike at his Abuja residence a few days after the May 28, 2022 primaries.

The visit was interpreted as a move by Atiku to douse tensions generated by the bitter outcome of the presidential primary. Sources close to the former Rivers State governor confirmed that Atiku had, during the visit, offered Wike the vice presidential slot. It’s understandable if Wike was desperate for space on the PDP presidential ticket. He had no Plan B.

Unlike other governors serving their second and final tenure at the time, the ex-Rivers governor did not seek the party’s nomination for the Senate, a ticket he would have picked on a platter of gold if he had so desired. So he must have considered Atiku’s offer as a chance to redeem his political career that was fast slipping off his fingers. The moment Atiku stepped out of his premises, Wike put a call through to the then Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom to break the news to him.

A source close to Ortom confirmed that the then-Benue governor had encouraged his friend to accept the offer. However, there was a change in plan as Atiku, a few days later, referred the decision to choose his running mate to a 19-member committee set up by the leadership of the party at his instance. Atiku submitted Wike’s name and that of the then Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa for the committee to pick from. Inside sources revealed that Wike secured 16 votes out of 19 while Okowa got only three.

It was being whispered at the time that the former Rivers governor had reached out strongly to members of the selection committee. This underscored his desperation for the vice presidential slot despite his many denials. The committee recommended Wike for the slot. However, Atiku, in apparent deference to a few of his loyalists, rejected the committee’s recommendation and settled for Okowa instead. And the devil was let loose. Suddenly, Wike remembered that the PDP presidential candidate was from the North.

It flashed through his mind that the then PDP National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, was also from the North. Similarly, it didn’t slip off his racing mind that the then chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin, was also a Northerner.
It’s a convention in the PDP that the party should alternate the chairmanship seat and the presidential ticket between the North and the South at any given election cycle. It was based on this convention that Wike, with an eye on the presidential ticket, months earlier, ensured that someone from the North, rather than the South, emerged as the PDP national chairman. The original zoning arrangement then, was for someone from the Southwest to take the chairmanship seat. But Wike railroaded the PDP Governors Forum and other stakeholders into denying the Southwest the seat.

That effectively truncated the aspiration of a former Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola who was a frontrunner in the race. That was how Dr Iyorchia Ayu, from Benue State, in the Northcentral, was elected as national chairman at a national convention micro-managed by Wike and other PDP governors.
With Oyinlola losing to Ayu in the October 31, 2021, PDP convention, Wike and his loyalists had expected the new party leadership to zone the presidential ticket to the South. However, the PDP, in its wisdom, or the lack of it, threw the contest for the ticket open to all comers. Atiku won the contest and the rest is history.
Having lost the party’s ticket and a chance to be Atiku’s running mate, Wike promptly raised the red flag. He made a weapon of the North holding on to the presidential ticket and the chairmanship seat in the same election cycle. 
In no time, the former Rivers governor had mobilised four fellow PDP governors for a battle with Atiku and the PDP leadership. In the lineup were the then Governors Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu), Samuel Ortom (Benue) and incumbent Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde. Led by Wike, the G-5, as they called themselves, threw down the gauntlet. The opposing camp, led by Atiku, wisely or unwisely, picked the fight.

A few months before the general election, the G-5 demanded the removal of Ayu as chairman and his replacement with another person from the South to counterbalance Atiku’s position as PDP flag bearer. That was the condition the G-5 gave to support Atiku in the presidential election. That was how Wike externalised and escalated his battle into a crusade for “equity for southern Nigeria.”

Unfortunately, neither Atiku nor the PDP leadership at the time demonstrated the requisite emotional intelligence to stanch the raging storm. Rather, the two camps chose to grandstand. Several half-hearted efforts to reconcile the feuding parties ended in stalemates. And the PDP went into the 2023 presidential election a divided house. Wike and the four other governors in his G-5 worked against Atiku and the PDP in their various states during the presidential election.

Atiku and his PDP came out of the election limping from self-inflicted defeat. Even after losing the election, the G-5 didn’t give up on their resolve to unhorse Ayu as chairman. And through a contrived legal rigmarole, Ayu was kicked out of his seat in March 2023. Without much ado, the then Deputy National Chairman (North), Amb. Umar Damagum was appointed as Acting National Chairman. Damagum is from Yobe State, in the Northeast zone whereas Ayu hailed from Benue State in the Northcentral. Damagum’s stay as acting chairman was meant to be brief.

He’s to hold forth while the Northcentral where Ayu comes from, finds a replacement. However, through alleged gifts and grifts, Damagum found himself in Wike’s camp along the line. Leveraging his position as the FCT Minister, the River ex-governor has since embarked on a mission to pull down the PDP house, brick and mortar. He has left no one in doubt that his appointment as FCT minister was a reward for helping to deflate Atiku’s votes in Rivers State during the 2023 presidential poll. And his latter-day employer, President Bola Tinubu of the APC, may as well be providing the tailwinds.

And Wike found Damagum willing to do for him a task that Ayu would not undertake. Under Section 47 (6) of the PDP constitution, Damagum ought to have relinquished the seat for a substantive national chairman appointed from the Northcentral zone where Ayu hailed from.

The Section reads: “Where a vacancy occurs in any of the offices of the party, the Executive Committee at the appropriate level shall appoint another person from the area or zone where the officer originated from to serve out the tenure of the officer.”

Anyone chosen by stakeholders in the Northcentral to replace Damagum must be approved by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC). Meanwhile, the party’s constitution vests the power to convene NEC meetings in the national chairman, a position Damagum currently occupies. However, Damagum has thwarted every move to have the NEC meeting convened. Four tentative dates fixed for the meeting between August and November 2024 failed to materialise.

Stakeholders, including critical organs of the party, including the PDP Governors Forum, the Board of Trustees (BoT), and the National Caucus among others, have made countless fruitless efforts to put the party back on track. Worried by the drift, the party’s governors, led by Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, had in November 2023, directed the Damagum-led leadership to convene the NEC meeting unfailingly by February 2025.

Also, piqued by the seeming intransigence of the acting chairman, party leaders and stakeholders in the Northcentral zone have joined the push to replace Damagum with one of their own. Two former Presidents of the Senate, Chief David Mark and Dr Bukola Saraki are leading the charge.

The push by Mark and Saraki has received the backing of prominent stakeholders, including the Plateau State Governor, Caleb Muftwang and other political office holders elected on the party’s platform. At a meeting in Abuja on Thursday, December 19, they resolved to produce Damagum’s replacement within the first quarter of 2025, in line with the party’s constitution.

Through Damagum, the former Rivers governor is holding the PDP by the balls. And he does not seem in any hurry to let go anytime soon. The FCT Minister is currently savouring the reward for his services to Tinubu and the APC during the 2023 presidential election. That reward will expire at the end of the current dispensation in 2027.

Wike’s ongoing task of decimating the PDP structure at the national level is a work in progress toward bushwhacking any presidential candidate the PDP may field in 2027. The party’s benumbed stakeholders are working hard to restrain the axe head that is lifting the PDP tree. But they seem to lack the courage to restrain the hand that is holding the haft. Wike has become a bone stuck in their collective throat.

They can’t swallow it, yet they can’t cough it out. And lurking in the dark, is Atiku Abubakar, a serial predator of presidential tickets. He has left no one in doubt about his thirst for another presidential nomination come 2027. While his nomination in the 2019 election received the backing of party stakeholders, his candidacy in the 2023 presidential election split the PDP along ethnic and religious lines.

The division that cost the party victory in the last election still lingers and smoulders. The crevices are running deeper as opposition to Atiku’s yet-to-be-declared aspiration for the 2027 ticket is growing by the day. Many stakeholders within the PDP view his speculated bid for the 2027 ticket as an attempt to abridge the two-term slot of the South.

They argue that the North had done its two terms of eight years, from 2015 to 2023 with Muhammadu Buhari. The argument by Atiku and his loyalists to the effect that Buhari did his eight years under the APC, is fast losing its appeal among key PDP stakeholders. They have countered that the election is a contest for the President of Nigeria and not the President of the PDP.

More so, having run with the PDP ticket in two election cycles in a row (2019 and 2023), many feel it’s about time the ticket moved to the South. Not a few stakeholders have cautioned the PDP against ceding its presidential ticket to a single individual in three consecutive election cycles. According to them, that would give the impression that the North has hijacked the PDP.

“This will certainly create a feeling of alienation among our compatriots in the South who might show their resentment by leaving the PDP en mass”, a stakeholder from one of the states in the Northwest observed.

Others are of the strong view that fielding Atiku, who will be above 80 years old by the 2027 election cycle, would be a hard sell for the party. More so, the PDP would be challenging an incumbent president who is adept at winning tough electoral battles. They are quick to recall how Tinubu managed to win the 2023 presidential election despite the array of strong opposing forces within his party, the APC. They fear that winning the 2027 election might be a cakewalk for Tinubu and his APC if the PDP fails to get it right.

But so far, there is no indication that Atiku will foreswear his anticipated 2027 aspiration. If the leadership of the PDP throws the 2027 contest open to all comers as it did in 2023, Atiku might vie for the ticket and win it for the third time. The former vice president has become a recurrent problem that the PDP has to contend with. So how does the party solve the twin problems of Nyesom Wike and Atiku Abubakar?

How does the PDP free itself from the ambush of the two executioners baiting the party from their vantage positions? And while Atiku wants to hijack the PDP structure for his aspiration, Wike is working hard to put the PDP on a leash and hand Tinubu the leash ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

Interestingly, there is a mule and a joker in the pack: A Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, had, on 11th October 2024, ruled that Damagum should retain his seat until December 2025. Justice Peter Lifu gave the ruling in a suit marked FHC/ABJ/ CS/579/2024. The suit was filed by the PDP chairman in Damagum’s Yobe State, Mallam Umar Maina challenging calls on Damagum to step down.

In the said ruling, Justice Lifu ordered that aside from Damagum, no other person must be recognised as the PDP Acting National Chairman until the party’s convention scheduled for December 2025. There is no record to show that the PDP leadership appealed the ruling. And while conflicts of interest may have consigned Wike and Atiku to the role of undertakers, Damagum is left to fiddle in the saddle.