Since the inception of the current democratic dispensation in 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has not been so humiliated in the polls in Imo State like the 2015 debacle.
In 1999, the party cleared everything that was available from the Governorship position to all the three Senatorial Slots of the State, with majority in the House of Representatives and the State Assembly.
In 2007, the PDP triumph continued, as the Governorship was retained through a “proxy candidate”, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, originally of the PDP, who momentarily moved to the Peoples Progressive Alliance, PPA, to win the election and return back to the PDP.
However in 2011, the overwhelming control the PDP had on Imo people began to wane. The party did not only lose some Senatorial seats and House of Representatives, but lost the major seat in the state; the Governorship.
When this happened, many observers including this writer had thought that the PDP will have a sober reflection, and take a look on what caused her the major diadem in 2011, and reinvent itself for future challenges posed by other political parties. But the party moved on without any critical study on how Owelle Rochas Okorocha of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, dusted an incumbent administration with the behemoth PDP standing behind it.
The PDP in the state went on with business as usual, deluding itself that the loser of the 2011 tsunami was the camdidates of the party who lost their deposits in the ill-fated election.
Every PDP member went home waiting for the next election in 2015. The only thing that was done by the party was to replace Chief Eze Duruiheoma with Chief Nnamdi Anyaehie as the State Chairman, after Duruiheoma was made Chairman of National Population Commission, NPC.
Meanwhile, PDP had enough time to work on its 2011 shortfalls, by first of all agreeing in theory and practice that it was no longer the party in power in Imo State. But with the likes of Rt. Hon Emeka Ihedioha being installed the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, he and others sustained the funding of the party, which kept merry going round. With Prof (Mrs) Viola Onwuliri becoming a Minister, and her constant presence in Imo State exhibiting Presidential goodies through President Goodluck Jonathan’s programmes, most Imo PDP members did not “give a damn”, as they believed that nothing has changed, when really a lot had changed.
This “artificial” hold on power confused Imo PDP Leaders and members from seeing the challenge the incumbent party in power posed to the party. With tumultuous followership of PDP in Imo, members believed that the 2015 election will be a walkover, and therefore much work was not done as a party facing a tough task of an incumbent Government, whose man at the Head had traversed all the political parties in Nigeria and therefore has legions of political tricks in his Bag.
Because Imo PDP did not take a retrospect of what cost it the Douglas House in 2011, it plunged into the 2015 primaries with many wounds remaining unhealed. First was the manner the Delegate election was handled.
After the Delegate election, many Leaders complained of being sidelined with the conduct of the exercise, which led to humiliation of many Leaders in their little domains. Cries of marginalisation and injustices by these leaders were not given an ear.
Rather than look into these complaints by the oppressed PDP members who are “Leaders” in their own little enclaves, the “Big Heads” at Okigwe Road looked the other way, even as the primaries approached, thinking that such issues could be swept under the carpet through fiat and negligence.
Therefore, as the “Opportuned Delegates” trooped into Grasshopper International Stadium last December to choose the Governorship candidate of the party, a majority were outside sulking over the mind-blowing amounts they learnt the Delegates made within a few weeks the primaries lasted.
Unfortunately, when the Delegates arrived their homes after the exercise, rather than use the money they made from the “Delegate” to help fund the party at the Ward levels, those who even tried to give back at all, gave stipends to other members, and carried the rest which they spent in buying lands, cars and sleeping in hotels with newfound lovers.
While PDP chose only three persons per Ward, APC selected about twenty-nine persons per Ward. While some of the APC “Delegates” came home, with many of them buying Motorcycles which they cruised around in the villages, only three members of PDP collected whooping sums in each Ward and went home.
With this situation, crisis had already set in right at the grassroots, where jealously and anger were poured on the “PDP Delegates” who other PDP members saw as the “chosen ones” and therefore worked against the party to fail as punishment to those opportuned ones at the Delegate not knowing that it was the party and the candidates they were punishing at the collective anger against “Delegates” who had pocked their monies.
Before Imo PDP arrived the present “Political Golgotha”, I had written about five pieces on this column where I warned that the party needs to rejig its plans as it was not yet “Uhuru”.
Although there are many factors that caused the party to post the dismal outing in the last polls, the major cause was poor Leadership, as the party failed to do many things it ought to do.
For instance, after the primaries, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume shocked many PDP members when he started challenging the winner, Rt. Hon Emeka Ihedioha after he had hugged him at Dan Anyiam Stadium. He later went to Court, which has not been disposed of as I write.
In a normal clime, what the Leadership of the party should have done was to delve into the matter by listening to all complaints, and in the end take action, which will lead to disciplining of any candidate who went against the party’s instruction.
Instead, what the PDP hierarchy did was to keep quiet and gloat over the Imo Guber issue, while looking into such matters in other states like Lagos where Senator Musiliu Obanikoro was placated with a promise of a Ministerial Slot, which Jonathan fulfilled.
I had thought that Jonathan’s visit to Imo on his Campaign trail would have been an opportunity to settle the Imo problem. Instead Jonathan came and talked only about his own election. Even when some of the Aspirants were present in the Stadium, no attempt was made to bring them to the podium to join in helping in raising the hand of Hon Ihedioha, which would have been used as an affirmation of his candidature by these Aspriants in the presence of the President. Prof Jude Njoku, Chief Humphrey Anumudu, Barr. Mike Ahamba, Senator Chris Anyanwu, etc were all seated at the venue when only the Deputy Governorship candidate, Rt. Hon Chuma Nnaji was invited to the podium. It would have been a masterstroke to have invited these Aspirants also to the podium before Jonathan.
Therefore, the PDP hierarchy and President Goodluck Jonathan will always be mentioned when the story of Imo Governorship misadventure is mentioned.
Many blamed Ihedioha for not reaching out to those Aspirants before the election. But experience has shown that although Ihedioha can reach them, but it is usually done by the party hierarchy where in most cases deals are struck and sealed by the instruction of the Leaders. Any personal promise made to any of those Aspirants by Ihedioha would not have been taken as binding like when the party concertedly did it.
However, there is no way one can talk about the Imo PDP Guber failure without mentioning the major Actor, Rt. Hon Emeka Ihedioha. Like every human being, Ihedioha has his own follies. Apart from the much held belief that he is arrogant, he could not see everything and needed his lieutenants to help stitch the loose ends where found.
The story that because he is from Mbaise made him lose votes is neither here nor there. That Mbaise people are a Wise and Intelligent lot is correct. But what did Imo PDP members want? A fool for a Governor? That Ihedioha is a young and Intelligent Mbaise man is no crime, just as Okorocha, Udenwa and Ohakim are also intelligent and sharp persons from clans in Imo State.
However, the Ihedioha team allowed a particular rumour to fester and grow wings. That Ihedioha had even before the election commenced shared out portfolios. Dr Alex Obi, Secretary to the State Government, Hon Alex Emeziem, Chief of Staff, Chief Chris Okewulonu the Minister nominee and other rumours.
This many said, was the reason Ihedioha Campaign Team did not want to accommodate new faces which led the Team not to allow persons from the Campaign Organizations of other Aspirants, after the end of the primaries, as required.
Nothing much was done by the Ihedioha team to rubbish these nefarious propaganda which was never dismantled till date.
Much as one is not against my “Boss” and “Bros” Hon Chuma Nnaji (who was eminently qualified), since Okorocha retained his Deputy Eze Madumere who is a male, but for political strategy and expediency, the PDP should have looked for a popular female politician from Orlu zone to pair Ihedioha, as that would have tilted the sympathy of the Women folk to Ihedioha; and who knows if that would have changed the present outcome of the election since none of the major political parties fielded a woman Deputy.
Again, PDP failed to capitalise on Okorocha’s mistakes to nail him, because the party underrated his capacity to make a second term success.
PDP had Okorocha where they wanted him when his Aides went to Assumpta Cathedral to upturn the tables during the Governor’s Debate. If PDP had strong propaganda machinery, Okorocha would not have recovered from that Assumpta imbroglio till after the April 11 election.
Instead, PDP was subdued by Okorocha’s own propaganda machinery, as his foot soldiers went into the villages to accuse the PDP of unimaginable things, which were bought by the gullible grassroots.
Okorocha did not help matters as he used every fora to carpet PDP and paint the party as a nest of rogues whose stock in trade was to loot the State’s Treasury, when he too is not clean.
But the straw that broke the Camel’s back was internal sabotage among the PDP Bigmen, necessitated by peer group jealousy and envy. The sort that happened to Ikedi Ohakim, when PDP members suddenly realized that their Governorship candidate had “Bad mouth” and hates the poor, forgetting his beautiful policies like the Clean and Green which made Imo the cleanest State in the Country, which should have mattered, and not whether the Governor sleeps while walking or not. And again, why should a good party man lead the battle to run down his or her own party’s candidate if not petty jealousy? Should the loyalty to the party not be supreme than who is the candidate?
Sabotage on the day of the election quickened the PDP failure. Greed was another. Some of those who were given logistics to facilitate the election either through mobilisation or other functions simply pocketed the funds and went home.
Those who usually used their own personal funds to work for the party, out of frustration refused to bring out theirs, and managed whatever the party provided, whether it will produce victory or not.
For such individuals, why should they continue to toil and spend for PDP only to be forgotten when time comes to recognise those that spend theirs for the party?
However, despite those internal sabotages among some PDP people, others like Ikedi Ohakim staked their lives to defend the party.
Today in Imo State, it has become clear that Owerri zone, despite its shortcomings in the election stands as the only area PDP can boast of in the state, apart from Isiala Mbano where Ohakim stood his ground.
Aboh Mbaise, Ezinihitte Mbaise, Ahiazu Mbaise, Ngor Okpala and Isiala Mbano LGAs have proven to be the areas that still believe in the PDP.
These Areas could be the mustard seeds whenever the party decides to have a new beginning. It is still very possible for the PDP to bounce back in the future in the state.
But this can be realisable only when the Party takes a stock of its history from 1999 till date, and tell itself the ugly truth that things must be done in a different way, since all its actions since 2007 have produce wrong results. It is only a fool that will continue to repeat the same action and expect a different result. And I know that Imo PDP members are no fools. Or are they?
