Standup9ja - Ali Modu Sheriff Not PDP’s Worst Demon – Azu Ishiekwene
Ali Modu Sheriff Not PDP’s Worst Demon, By Azu Ishiekwene
The Peoples Democratic Party is dying of numerous
self-inflicted wounds and may not recover for as long as it thinks that Ali
Modu Sheriff is its deadliest poison.
From the headlines, you would think that Modu Sheriff is the
beginning and the end of the problems of the PDP; that once you feed him to the
sharks, all would be well with the party again.
This piece was
written by Azu Ishiekwene. The views and opinions expressed here are those of
the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of
360Nobs.com.
That’s fine. Modu Sheriff, who has tried unsuccessfully to
distance himself from Boko Haram, is probably one of Nigeria’s most dangerous
politicians. He is rich, well connected and ruthlessly strategic – all of
which, ironically, are regarded as asset in politics.
If there was a shred of honesty left in PDP, however, the
party would admit that there’s nothing about Modu Sheriff that should come to
it as a surprise.
This was the same Modu Sheriff that a godfather of the PDP,
former President Goodluck Jonathan, engaged when he thought Nigeria needed help
from Idriss Derby of Chad to contain Boko Haram.
At the time, Paul Biya of Cameroun was fed up with Abuja’s
shenanigans and ruled out any direct contact with Jonathan on Boko Haram.
With our tails between our legs, we turned to Derby for
help. Only Jonathan can explain why he thought that his entourage to Ndjamena
would be incomplete without his talisman, Modu Sheriff.
If that was a mistake, Modu Sheriff’s influence did not wane
after Jonathan’s defeat and PDP’s catastrophic loss at the 2015 polls.
Instead, after the fall of its two chairmen Adamu Mu’azu and
Uche Secondus, the PDP machine, comprising the national caucus, governors,
members of the national working committee and the party’s leaders in the
National Assembly, all lined up behind Modu Sheriff. Femi Fani-Kayode was the
notable exception.
Modu Sheriff is a symptom of the problem with the PDP but
the party’s demons go much deeper and way back.
Some might say it started with the injustice sown at the
party’s first national convention in Jos in 1998, when Alex Ekwueme was
brazenly cheated out of the party’s presidential ticket in favour of Olusegun
Obasanjo, a latecomer and an outsider.
Others might argue that in the context of the post-June 12
national crisis, the cheating was regrettable but expedient.
Neither side can deny that the consequence of that brazen
act has haunted the PDP in all its conventions afterwards. Once it got the
foundation wrong, it’s not been able to get it right since.
That first wrong move has not only remained a template, it
has produced a litany of bad habits infecting the party’s vital organs. In Jos,
PDP transferred the letter and spirit of the party’s constitution to the
custody of its godfathers, who thereafter began to do as they pleased, once the
price was right.
The height of it was the infamous case of Ndudi Elumelu who
actually admitted paying N750 million to the party’s godfathers in Delta State
to secure the party’s governorship nomination. The godfathers swindled him of
the money (actually part of an unsecured loan of N2 billion from a major bank)
and he cried out publicly for help until the scandal was squashed.
Once elected, you monetised power for yourself and for the
godfather. Citizens who had no hand in it in the first place, could go to hell.
This practice was not exclusive to the PDP. But the party
behaved in a way that left no one in doubt that it was the official
headquarters of corruption. Regardless of its odious reputation, it boasted
that it would rule Nigeria for at least 60 years.
Well, the party continued for 16 years; and except for those
who had their beaks in the trough, most could see after Obasanjo’s first term
that PDP was largely on steroids.
The Obasanjo-Atiku warfare, intra-PDP resistance to the
fight against corruption, Obasanjo’s third term agenda, the emergence of Umaru
Yar’Adua as president and his untimely death, exposed the deep weaknesses
within the PDP – weaknesses that were beyond Jonathan.
It was only a matter of time before the party would collapse
under the weight of its own hubris.
This, of course, is not the convenient version. Party
leaders like Jerry Gana who should know better insist on the single narrative
that the problem with the PDP is 2019: Modu Sheriff is the spoiler paid by the
All Progressives Congress to damage the opposition.
It’s not untrue. Inside sources told me of three key persons
– one a former governor (South-South), one serving (North-West), and an
arrowhead in the North-East – who would stop at nothing to finish off the
opposition.
In light of Modu Sheriff’s shameful role in the governorship
election in Ondo, Gana appears to be on point.
But Modu Sheriff is not new to the sale of party flag. That
was how a major rump of the ANPP ended up in PDP’s belly under Obasanjo. So,
why is Gana complaining?
Four fingers pointing back at Gana also insinuate that
former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is preparing the Makarfi faction – which
Gana supports – as a shell under which the former Vice President could contest
the presidency in 2019.
Apart from Gana, others have their own schemes. Ekiti State
Governor, Ayodele Fayose, for example, knows that a hostile takeover of the
party would complicate his exit and succession, given what happened last year
in Ondo.
And this is precisely where the PDP’s problem lies: the
party is so obsessed with returning to power that it is prepared to tip over a
cliff, blindfolded, to grab it.
PDP was voted out because it had lost touch with its base.
It had become a party of impunity, a trading post where the only currency was power
for its own sake.
It was neither obeying its own rules nor did it care about
the integrity of public institutions under its care. The party was rotten to
the core.
After 13 years between Obasanjo and Jonathan, the party is
shrinking. It has downgraded from a national party to a South-South/South-East
party, and from that to a South-South party, with Governors Nyesom Wike and
Fayose as its new face.
The maggots are within.
It will take more than a court ruling for or against Modu
Sheriff to fix the PDP. If the party does not return to its roots, to deal with
the problems of where the rain started beating it, it will one day discover
that Modu Sheriff is its own Donald Trump.
Just like it happened to the dinosaurs of the Republican
Party, Modu Sheriff will chase them out of their own party, one by one, leaving
them out in the cold and the party in complete ruins.
Azu Ishiekwene is the MD/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview
and member of the Board of the Paris-based Global Editors Network.
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