The erstwhile highly regarded governor of Anambra State and Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi, dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the twilight of campaigns for the just concluded but rigged Presidential election for Labour party, leaving Nigeria without any organized political party to oppose the central government-All Progressive Congress (APC).
Thankfully, Peter Obi’s Labour Party is Nigeria’s sole viable political opposition.
So, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose election triumph as recorded by the discredited INEC is being contested in Court, has purportedly funded a Labour Party section with tonnes of slush monies to create the image of a parallel government, but to no effect. The hire lings’ cover has broken, revealing them as APC-hired saboteurs and moles to destabilize LP and make it easier for the APC to establish a one-party state in Nigeria. It’s heartening that true leaders like Edo State-born activist Mr. Abure are courtroom fighters. The High Court in Abuja is an appropriate arena for the Federal government to get Ankara market injunctions to attempt to terminate Labour Party’s legitimate hierarchy led by Abure. Labour Party is now a genuine opposition, but it is not well-funded as PDP was before the “devil” penetrated and sowed strife among its core funders. Second, the Labour Party’s sponsored section is inflicting so much harm because they have so much money from the federal government or Ahmed Tinubu’s sponsors.
After conceding the 2015 presidential election to the All Progressives Congress, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) became the official opposition political giant.
No more! Not with the party’s infighting.
Political notoriety has reduced PDP to a paperweight. Political Ogbanje currently.
Like Atiku, the Tribunal reserves ruling in Obi’s Tinubu suit.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike are the main culprits in the PDP turmoil. Nyesom Wike, a lawyer by training, has worked in Rivers and central politics for 30 years as a local council administrator, chief of staff to a governor, junior minister for education for 5 years, and Rivers State chief executive for 8 years. He and Atiku are professional politicians.
The dispute is about PDP leadership. Politicians frequently struggle for power. Thus, PDP and these candidates for its soul have now succeeded in decapitating the once-powerful political opposition platform in the Federal Republic of Nigeria and turning it into a banana political contraption with no clear direction.
Atiku Abubakar’s insistence on running for President on the PDP’s platform twice—in 2015 and 2023—started their issues.
He failed both times but held the PDP by the throat.
Since 2019, rich retired Customs head Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has acted as PDP’s General Overseer.
The PDP was dismembered and handicapped by Atiku’s last presidential run.
Atiku’s selfish hold on the PDP presidential ticket in 2023, when it was the South’s time after Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years for the North, broke the camel’s back.
Atiku again accused Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike of failing to micro-zone the 2023 presidential candidate to the South East. Atiku is correct, but only to the degree that he could have sacrificed his ambition to allow the South to have it, even if Wike disliked South East. Suppose ethically challenged INEC had permitted a free and fair election. In that case, the PDP might have won in 2023 if Atiku had enabled the South to produce a strong presidential candidate with a strong Muslim running mate. Yet Atiku continued trying to be President, and the same APC that devastated Nigeria for 8 years under Muhammadu Buhari’s rudderless and colourless administration delivered a fabricated winner in Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
After wasting purportedly Rivers State money, the voluble Nyesom Wike lost the Presidential primaries to Atiku. He felt terrible but hoped to be Atiku Abubakar’s running partner.
After failing to win the PDP presidential ticket, Mr. Wike launched underground campaigning to become Atiku’s running mate, but Atiku selected Delta State governor Okowa Ifeanyi, starting the genuine PDP contest. PDP is a shell. PDP is morally and existentially tainted. Senator Dino Melaye recounted how Nyesom Wike called him repeatedly to encourage Atiku Abubakar to choose him as his running mate. But this fantasy shattered when Atiku Abubakar, fearing Nyesom Wike was too strong-willed to be a VP, picked the less boisterous politician Okowa, who also managed the opulent Delta state for 8 years and is not impoverished.
Mr. Wike, a lawyer and former governor of Rivers State, is one of PDP’s primary fundraisers and has a lot of power and grip on the party. He and five other heavyweight PDP governors organized a gang-up against the party’s presidential candidate. They fought the PDP and demarketed Atiku.
The fight inside the PDP crippled the PDP for the 2023 presidential contest, while the five PDP governors headed by Mr. Wike openly worked for the APC. Now, Mr. Wike is a ministerial nominee under Tinubu’s APC-led administration. He even offered to be the women’s Affairs minister.
Even with clear evidence that Mr. Wike stood against the PDP in the 2023 poll, the PDP has no moral power to discipline him because the party is inherently soaked in the muddy water of violently breaching their constitutional provision on power rotation by presenting Atiku, a Northerner, as the presidential candidate in 2023 after the North has had 8 years under Buhari.
PDP is self-destructing.
Secondly, PDP’s unwillingness to give Southern Nigeria the Presidential ticket is unconstitutional. A Nigerian constitutional law expert explained this.
The two main political parties constitutions promote zoning and power rotation, according to Mr Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN.
His comments occurred during the campaign during the northern-southern political battle over who would become President.
At a September 27 meeting in Kaduna, northern governors argued the southern governors’ stance breached the constitution.
The top lawyer of Nigeria has responded to this problem by saying the Nigerian constitution’s authors included provisions for national cohesiveness via power allocation.
Mr Adegboruwa, a Lagos lawyer, said section 14(3) of the constitution required zoning and power rotation to promote national cohesion and prevent ethnic groups from dominating.
“When we analyze different aspects of the 1999 constitution, notably chapter 2, it is plainly stated that the founders had foreseen that we were going to reach to this juncture in our national lives,” he added.
Thus adequate arrangements have been established to accommodate national cohesiveness, take everyone along in government, and assure unity, equality, and fairness in power and office distribution.
“In particular, I’ll allude to section 14 of the 1999 constitution, specifically section 14(3), which speaks about the necessity for a spread in the allocation of offices and composition of government so that no state, ethnic group or tribe dominates power sharing.
In that respect, we should foster national cohesiveness, solidarity, and loyalty among all ethnic groups and the geographical zone that makes up Nigeria.
“Their Excellencies on their opinion that rotation is antithetical to the Nigerian constitution; the provision they alluded to in particular only dealt with the form of election, how a person might be elected President of Nigeria.
“But the constitution, even before that clause, had imagined that there must be such national breadth and balance so that no ethnic group or tribe dominates.
The educated Mr Adegboruwa said the constitutions of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) both allow zoning and power rotation.
The Nigerian political system has always had it. “Article 7 of the PDP’s constitution states that it would follow the idea of zoning elected posts amongst Nigeria’s regions,” he added.
Article 7 of the APC constitution states that it will foster national unity.
He said talent and national cohesiveness should weigh more than a president’s birthplace in a civilized society.
Mr Adegboruwa, a law expert, also argued the zoning debate was caused by political elites who care only about themselves.
“Ordinarily, nobody should be bothered about the provenance of the president of a country, provided government follow a certain principle of proportional representation appointment are based on national cohesiveness and merit,” he stated.
“As a country, we need to guarantee common and decent governance, infrastructure, and democratic form of government,” he added.
The APC respected their constitution and picked a Southern presidential candidate, but the PDP did not, intensifying the internal moral tensions that are now the generic canon fodder that exploded and destroyed the PDP. PDP has self-destructed. PDP needs to gain respectable people. Nyesom Wike, who ruined PDP with Atiku, blamed Atiku for PDP’s current woes.
In an appearance on national television, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar made unguarded public statements, which former Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike called terrible. Their infighting started during the February 25th Presidential Election campaign.
Wike made this media assertion throughout the presidential campaign.
Atiku and the renegade five governors headed by Mr Wike hurled barbs at the media.
As he was, Governor Wike believed that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the PDP national chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, should have contacted him, but they did not. Wike also requested that Mr. Iyu, a Northerner bankrolled into office by Atiku and Wike, retire so a Southerner could become the party’s national chairman. Mr Wike supported Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who broke the gentlemen’s political agreement in Nigeria by choosing his fellow Muslim as his running mate, making Nigeria the first nation to have a president and vice president of the same faith, violating the Federal character concept. Wike still thinks Atiku destroyed PDP, but they both did.
Again, former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike accused Alhaji Atiku of lying in the interview. After arriving from Spain on Friday, he made a claim to the media at the international wing of Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, in Ikwerre Local Government Area.
Governor Wike said Abubakar lied about him at introducing PDP vice presidential candidate Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa on national television.
He continued, “But, people will realize and know the genuine facts. To tell Nigerians the truth, I will speak. Nigerians chose what to do with the truth.
“Because you can imagine, when PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar presented the vice presidential candidate, no right-thinking fan of our party would argue that his speech that day was fair. Avoid favour-seekers. Ignore the scavengers. I have yet to respond. Because this celebration is ours.
See his Arise Television remark after that. You urged me to ignore numerous falsehoods. Not fair.”
Former governor Wike said he came to Rivers State after the PDP primaries to fulfil his outstanding commitments to Rivers people. He stated he would reply to the falsehoods after the inauguration of many finished projects.
If I were dead today, everything they said would be true. Sule Lamido, Babaginda Aliyu, and Maina Waziri are his attack dogs. Check their assertions. I never replied to their assaults.
Nigerians will question, did these things happen? As a person, for my future and those who support me, I must say, “This is not fair.” I’ll respond to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s and his attack dogs’ claims line by line.
Governor Wike said he would not accept criticism since he fought the presidential primaries and finished second. He stressed correcting the record for party supporters to know who was telling the truth.
“Look at it, a presidential candidate who feels he wants to win the election and another who competed strongly with him that has never presented any concern. To help my condition progress, I stayed silent.
Yet his people assault me daily. That’s unjust, so I’ll tell Nigerians once we commission our projects. He confessed to seeing Senator Bukola Saraki in Spain but stated nobody sent the former Senate President. Nyesom began criticizing Atiku and making demands, including his prerequisite for reconciliation before the election that Iyorchia Ayu leaves so a Southerner could become party chairman, which Atiku rejected. Nyesom Wike openly antagonized the PDP. The PDP entered the presidential election completely divided.
Governor Wike is above the law after his PDP was publicly humiliated. He had dared the PDP leadership to suspend him over anti-party claims, which are now obvious, to see if he wouldn’t dismantle the PDP. Wike has not left PDP but is romancing APC and is now a ministerial candidate, a political taboo in Nigeria, where central government formation is based on the premise of WINNER TAKES ALL.
The PDP can’t suspend him even if he’s left the party and is working for the APC. Atiku is not eager to let the PDP breathe. Atiku, suing APC’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu on all fronts, is holding PDP captive. If the Court compromised and validated Tinubu’s stolen victory, Atiku might run for PDP presidency in four years. PDP would have been buried by then, and its nunc dimittis would have rung out.
PDP is seeing a mass exodus of credible members. Chief Anyim Puys Anyim, PDP Senate President and Secretary of the Federal Government, is the newest. Ebonyi PDP would crumble without him. I just met Tinubu and APC national chairman. I’ve heard he’ll leave PDP soon.
Finally, I urge President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to quit destroying political opposition and sponsoring the Labour Party section for self-enlightenment.
I warned Tinubu that if multiparty democracy dies, constitutional democracy is finished, and anything may happen, even a military takeover.
Atiku Abubakar and Nyesom Wike’s actions that crippled Nigeria’s biggest opposition party, the PDP, are so dangerous because without an opposition party, the President will become a fascist, and democracy relies on freedom of speech, association, and other fundamental rights.
How does the opposition party function in democracy?
An academic book asserts that in a democracy, the opposition party is essential to governing. In a democracy, the minority party, usually known as the opposition, checks the government. The opposition criticizes and holds the governing party responsible for its policies. The opposition party challenges the government and presents alternative views and ideas essential for a healthy democracy. This article will outline the role, functions, strengths, and flaws of the opposition party in a democracy, emphasizing its relevance.
How important is the opposition party?
In a democracy, the opposition party is crucial.
They ensure government accountability. The opposition challenges the government’s policies and offers a different perspective.
According to this expert, the opposition party’s main role is to monitor the administration and point out any concerns.
The author believed this ensures that the government serves the public and addresses concerns. Maintaining public faith in government and democratic institutions requires this.
By offering alternatives to government policy, the opposition contributes to democracy. This gives the public a say in politics and ensures the government responds to their demands.
The opposition also promotes active political conversation. They question the governing party’s policies and actions, educating and engaging the people. This allows for free speech and prevents the governing party from becoming too powerful, which is vital for democracy.
Opposition parties prevent power abuses and authoritarianism.
They will expose government misconduct and prevent it from growing too dominant. This keeps the government responsible and preserves democracy (Source: Geeksforgeeks).
Wike and Atiku, what will it benefit you if you destroy Nigeria’s main opposition party in your greedy quest for opportunistic power and willful sabotage of pluralism?
You’ll be remembered as Nigeria’s constitutional government’s adversaries for centuries. Our memories include this history.
