The embattled Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a bid to reposition itself as the largest political party in Africa and bounce back as Nigeria’s ruling party, has been mapping out winning strategies, including changing its brand name, among others. UKANDI ODEY writes that variables, other than the name, needed to be reassessed
Following its poor showing in the 2015 general elections, and eventual loss of power at the centre, tongues of stake holders have been wagging in respect of what needs to be done to re-invent and reposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Some have even suggested changing the party’s name as part of rebranding and refurbishing its electoral fortunes.
Prided itself as the largest political party in the black world, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, dominated the political space in Nigeria since the restoration of democracy in 1999. It controlled power at the centre and majority of the states, and pushed other parties into nominal opposition, held sway for sixteen years until a coalition of partisan forces gave it a run for its might and size, in a baptism of fire that reversed its fortunes and swung power to an emergent opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, in the 2015 general elections.
Dazed by the defeat and demystified by such monumental crash from the grace of power, the Peoples Democratic Party has been groaning, groping, and wriggling, to save itself from the prospects and threshold of political oblivion and obliteration. Besides a series of meetings and a regime of committees, the party organogram has been imploded with proposals and propositions on how to revamp the party.
Some have even suggested changing the name of the party as it is presently known, arguing that the negative perception of the party, especially the huge image of “deception” and “insincerity” that super-imposed itself on public rating of the party on the eve of the last general elections, did much to grate its fortunes and ensure its rejection in the general elections.
Was the electoral experience of the party in the last election really about its name and the mischievous corruption of the same name to make synonym with vices and sundry vicious acts generated by character failure?
Excerpts from the report of the PDP election review committee headed by deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu indicate that in a majority of the states of the federation, the processes leading to the election proper were archetypical because they were replete with stereotypes. A common strand that ran through the demeanour of the party leadership across the states was the killing of internal democracy and promotion of god-fatherism, unfair competition, and unequal privileges. This, according to the report, was not without grave and devastating consequences to party cohesion, unity, and ultimately electoral fortunes. To this group, blaming the bad moment on the party name is sheer blackmail and name-calling, or at best chasing the shadow.
Another strand with a footage sequel to the foregoing in which belongs former political adviser to former governor, Jonah Jang, Nde Alexander Molwus, simply asks: ‘does it matter?’ What is in a name? According to Molwus, the PDP as a name and as a party has been very successful since its formation in 1998. Molwus argued that in the election of 1999, the PDP recorded a landslide because the internal processes and inner workings of the party were coherent and cohesive. Then, he noted, the preponderant and prevailing party tradition was one that upheld the equality of members; and fair play and fairness were decisive principles in the determination of who got what on the platform of the party; meaning there was no cause for disenchantment, disaffection, or dismemberment anywhere within the party ranks.
On the contrary, noted Molwus, once the party formed government in 1999, and the president, the state governors and other political office holders seized the stage, an uncanny era of incendiary practices and patterns ensued to erode and supplant internal democracy, equality of members, equity, and good conscience. This was when innovations such as the dubious, duplicitous, and distractive designation of “party leader” crept into the lexicon of partisan politics, and gradually relocated ultimate party authority and discipline and conscience from the party chairman to the president or state governor. According to this group, by 2015, the party was rabidly austere of party ethos; and even more precipitately vacant of its original and originating values and virtues, though the name ‘PDP’ was already a brand name with household acceptability and popularity even at the grassroots.
Molwus’ group surmises that there is nothing wrong with a party losing an election. With cross-border examples from the United States of America and other established democracies in the Western world, they argue that losing an election is as much of fair play and good sportsmanship as winning the same election.
They also sound the observation that if the PDP did not lose in the last general elections, Nigerians and the rest of the observing world wouldn’t have been able to see and assess the unproductive and entire negativities which the All Progressives Congress represent as a ruling party. In their opinion, more than ever before, it is now the ‘PDP’ as a name should stick and stay, because it is ringing a bell and evoking desirable memories that will sack the APC in 2019.
Explaining the exchanges that took place on the night the name “Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP)”was reached and adopted in his house in Jos in 1998 for registration as a political party, former minister for trade and investment, Sir Fidelis Tapgun, said all the founding fathers of the party accepted and adopted the name because it captured the mood of the people as they were yearning for democracy and the dividends that come with such people-based popular governance.
For him, even those who left the party have had to come back, because in both name and spirit, the PDP must forge on as a party. What is required is reconciliation and forgiveness, and a collective resolve to forge a new spirit, recapture its destiny, and return the party to winning ways beginning in 2019.
In a recent chat with press men in his office in Jos, former minister of youth and sports and chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party in Plateau state, Damishi Sango, warned those canvassing the idea of change of name for the party to desist forthwith because “PDP is a brand name”. According to Sango, those drumming that position are certainly those who do not know the history of the party and how the name was arrived at.
Sango recalled that it took high-wire risks and sacrifices by some elders then who dared a deadly and fire-spitting officialdom to agitate for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria to bring out the PDP as the party that summarises those struggles, sacrifices, and dreams.
Again, the question resonates: what is in a name? It is certainly characters and party programmes that win elections not party name or logo. The Challenge before the PDPD is to overhaul its internal structures that will allow justice and equity rather than names and money bags to determine the affairs of the party. Besides, all party members must share the blame, forgive and forget the past, and mbrace the subsisting ‘offensive’ as a renaissance programme.