Jonathan’s Bayelsa challenge -By Ike Aboniyi

Hardly would you find any of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who would be happy with former President Goodluck Jonathan today. Most members of the opposition party believe that the entry of the former President into the strategic position of leading the party is responsible for its nosedive into opposition.

The party, through one of its former National Chairmen Prince Vincent Ogbulafor had predicted that the PDP would be at the driver’s seat of the nation’s polity for at least 60 years before any other political party can begin to think of having a shot at the plum position.

The party had operated with all arrogance and impunity believing in this soothsayer’s prediction. But since it is widely said that man proposes and God disposes. In this instance, PDP politicians proposed but voters disposed.

In His own design, the master himself, the almighty political strategists, God, could only allow them 16 years. Unfortunately for him, former President Jonathan happened to be on the throne when this disruption happened and he has been receiving all the bashings. Many believe that if he had respected his own vow not to go for a second term, and a Northerner fielded as PDP Presidential flag bearer, the story would have been different from what it is at the moment.

Some others also believe that even running against his pledge, if he had been firm in providing leadership, the story would still have been in his favour, instead, he allowed himself to be hijacked by so many forces that prevented his political wheels from rolling.

Events at the villa, the seat of power when Jonathan held sway clearly showed that the President was disconnected from the people and far removed from happenings in his immediate environment.

Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka who was once a supporter of Jonathan but had to dump him for President Muhammadu Buhari when he discovered that the former President was caged raised the alarm that the former President was oblivious of lots of important events around him, including not being aware of diplomatic row that made Moroccan Government recall their ambassador from Nigeria. Since May 29, 2015 about 75 days hence, Jonathan joined the club of ex- President but unlike others, he is not sleeping well yet, politically speaking.

Aside the heat from the fire put on his administration by the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government over corruption; the rumbling in his party especially in his home state of Bayelsa has become an issue of grave concern.

PDP watchers are worried because given the lackluster leadership Jonathan gave at the national level that led to the defeat of the party at the general elections, it would not be shocking if by December this year, PDP is humiliated in the gubernatorial election right before his nose.

Why not, you may ask if the piece of information rolling out from the oil rich state is anything to be taken seriously? Ordinarily, it should have been a walkover for the former President’s party but not when the former first family appears visibly divided on which candidate to support.

The former President is said to be backing the incumbent governor Seriake Dickson, whom he literarily put into office about four years ago after using Presidential power to chase away and deny former Governor Timipre Sylva who is now a chieftain of the APC a second term.

But his irrepressible wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, popularly and politically known as Mama P, is supporting anybody who is not the incumbent Governor Dickson who even made her Permanent Secretary in the state. The situation has polarized the polity in the state especially the PDP. The PDP Board of Trustees (BOT) sent their leaders to wade in for reconciliation but failed to achieve peace because they were reconciling the wrong people.

They went treating symptoms and left the ailment unattended to. Instead of reconciling Jonathan and his wife, the two combatants holding the state’s political pulse, they went talking to their field men.

The consequence of the wrong diagnosis is the reported defection of dozens of key figures of PDP and their supporters in the state to the APC with about four months to the governorship election. A utility PDP chieftain and former Managing Director, of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Timi Alaibe, and Chief Alex Ekiotenne, a former Honorary Adviser to Governor Dickson, are leading the pack to the APC.

At least 700 political leaders of the PDP and their supporters in the state are expected to be formally received by Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo; National Chairman, APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, members of the party’s NEC and APC state governors this Saturday during a formal declaration ceremony in Yenagoa, the capital.

Chief Alaibe was said to have while confirming the defection noted that PDP has drifted in the state and has been unable to deliver good governance to Bayelsans. Indeed, it would be catastrophic if the political incongruity of Jonathan and the wife is allowed to mar the chances of PDP in the December 5, gubernatorial poll in the state.

If the expressions of President Buhari is to be taken seriously and I advise we should, in the coming days and weeks, the image of Jonathan and his government would be copiously placed at the wrong corners of history. To add that to the home crisis would be disastrous and the former President and the wife should know this and move fast to stem it.

To have an APC pursue him out of villa and six months later chase him out of his own state would be too ugly and too bitter to comprehend.

Jonathan should therefore call his wife to order and save himself from further embarrassment which the loss of PDP would bring. After March 28, 2015, Nigerians are no longer quick to say it can’t happen.

We all are living witnesses that it happened, a sitting President lost and heaven did not even blink. God save our democracy.

Footnote
Enugu rewards Josephine Ugwu:
Remember her. The lady we celebrated in this space on May 21, 2015 for returning over N12million (foreign currencies), she picked while cleaning the airport in Lagos. Her home state of Enugu has offered her job and named a street after her, what a reward for goodness.

Bravo to Gburugburu.