EMEKA NZE writes that the failure to retain power in Ondo state, is a major blow to the PDP and this is raising more questions about the chances of the party in future elections
The failure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to retain Ondo state after last Saturday’s governorship election is a repeat of the party’s woeful performance at general elections since 2015, when it lost control of power at the centre, to the All Progressives Congress (APC). The loss to the APC also in the governorship battle in Ondo state is a clear indication that the PDP faces a daunting task bouncing back to political limelight and reclaim its lost glory.
For incumbent Governor and Chairman, PDP Governor Forum, Olusegun Mimiko, to fail in his bid to produce a successor in the last election is a major problem for the party. According to the result released by INEC, APC polled 244, 842, to defeat the PDP which scored 150, 380 votes to place second in the race. Having lost Ondo, after losing Edo a few weeks earlier is an ominous sign that the party’s future is shaky.
Expectedly, the outcome of the election has raised more questions begging for answers. Concerned observers have expressed the belief that the decision of Modu Ali Sheriff and his supporters to factionalise the PDP led to its failure in the elections.
But the Sheriff-led faction, said it has identified impunity and lack of respect for the party’s constitution and the rule of law as the major problems that led to its failure in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections.
The faction, at a media briefing in Abuja, said the blame for the losses falls on three governors elected under the platform of the party.
Even though the faction did not mention the names of the three governors, it could be a vague reference to governors of Rivers, Ekiti and Ondo states, Nyesom Wike, Ayodele Fayose and Mimiko respectively with whom it has engaged in running battles.
According to the faction, an analysis of the 2015 general election showed that all the ten states the party lost were in the northern part of the country, adding that even south-south states would not have survived if former President Goodluck Jonathan did not hail from the region. It said the figures that emanated from the south-east were also “abysmal”.
In the press briefing, addressed by the deputy national chairman of the faction, Cairo Ojougbo, said ” in all these difficult times only three governors have been the architects of the destruction of the party”.
According to Ojougbo, “Only the governors of “Taraba, Gombe, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers states and a few others have been very cooperative and are willing to let the party grow. They have shown maturity, understanding and sagacity in the affairs of the PDP.”
Lamenting over the electoral misfortune of the party, the Sheriff faction recalled that the impact of impunity in the PDP manifested itself for the first time in the 2011 general elections when the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, defeated the PDP in Nasarawa State.
“We had a sitting governor then who could not deliver. This was the first warning against impunity. It was ignored.
Then in 2015 we had governors in Benue, Kogi, Niger, Jigawa, Plateau, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Bauchi and Adamawa. We lost in all these states for a common reason, the governors were not unpopular but they imposed their surrogates and the people voted them out. We paid for impunity,” Ojougbo stated.
He said the outcome of the 2015 election proved that although governors are very important in winning elections for a party, they do not necessarily determine the outcome.
“The running of the party should therefore not be left entirely to their whims and caprices. The party must have a say because party is supreme. In the case of Mimiko’s Ondo, the party was denied the valuable say,” he said.
The party leader also said that the faction had cried to all concerned ahead of the Edo election that the party hierarchy in the state was defective and that the Leadership needed to be changed “to allow the 60 stalwarts of the PDP who defected to APC return to the fold.”
“Of course the governors refused. There was no surprise to the result.
“In Ondo State, the script was written in 2013 when Governor Mimiko returned to PDP. All members he met on the ground left the party for him and he took over the PDP. The structure was handed over to the Labour Party.
“If Oke had not gone to AD and Mimiko managed leadership sportsmanly, PDP would have won the election convincingly.
“In the election, APC scored 244,842 votes while PDP scored 150,380 and AD scored 126,889 votes. It is a fact that the AD votes belong to PDP and the simple arithmetic shows why PDP lost; our votes went to Oke and AD,” he said.
He also said that when Mimiko returned to the PDP, his fellow governors appealed to him to allow for harmonization but he refused.
He said all the PDP members led by Olusola Oke therefore left the party. He said it was PDP governors who invited Mr. Sheriff to be the chairman of the party.
Ojougbo said in choosing a candidate to succeed him, Mr. Mimiko did not allow original members of the PDP to buy forms.
In his own assessment of the outcome of the Ondo election, the Senator representing Ogun East, in the Senate, Buruji Kashamu (PDP), said that PDP lost the election due to refusal of Mimiko to heed to what he called “wise counsel”.
It would be recalled that Mimiko never elected on a PDP ticket. He became governor in 2008 after a successful petition against the 2007 election of PDP’s Mr. Agagu. A post-primary defector from the PDP, he had challenged Mr. Agagu’s reelection on the ticket of the Labour Party and was reelected in 2012 on the same party’s ticket, in a three-man race that mirrored that of last Saturday. His two main challengers in that election were Akeredolu of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria and Olusola Oke, who was the PDP candidate at the time. After his reelection, Mimiko defected with the governor’s seat to the PDP, infuriating sitting members of the party in the state, including Oke who eventually defected to the APC.
But in what looks like its first major reaction to the Ondo poll, the Makarfi –led faction of the PDP said in a statement that the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, aided the APC to rig the election.
The spokesman of the faction, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, said INEC has now “graduated from inconclusive Elections as seen in Kogi, Bayelsa, Osun, FCT, Imo, Nassarawa and some other previous By-Elections in the Country to ‘Advanced Election Rigging’, as in the case of Edo and Ondo States Gubernatorial Elections”.
The statement reads in part “it is common knowledge that the APC Agents openly bought votes of the electorates in the full glare of security operatives who did nothing to prevent such dastardly violation of the Electoral Law.
“It is not surprising that the electorates in Ondo state became so vulnerable to the corruptive influence of the APC because of the hash economic situation in the Country inflicted on Nigerians by the APC Administration which have indeed made all Nigerians virtually beggars in their own country”.
Furthermore, Adeyeye declared: “The actions of INEC in collaboration with the APC led Administration left us no time to campaign and sell our Candidate and Party Manifesto to the electorates in Ondo State.
“Our persistent call for the postponement of the Election which was backed and supported by more than 20 other political parties were all rejected by INEC which were acting the script of the APC.
“It was a carefully planned and well-orchestrated strategy to rig the Election well in advance by preventing the PDP from planning and campaigning for the Election. The APC has hereby introduced a new formula of rigging Election in Nigeria.
“In view of the fact that the Election was blatantly manipulated from the beginning to the end to favour the APC, we vehemently reject the results of the November 26, 2016 Gubernatorial Election in Ondo State”. The question begging for answer is when will the PDP put its house together and reclaim its past glory even as 2019 general elections approach?
