To say that the recently concluded special convention of the Peoples Democratic Party was a burst is an understatement. When the commotion began, my first thought was that “the PDP is putting on a show to devein and defang the opposition.” But the more I watched what was going on, the reality began to sink in: the President and his wing in the party were losing it.

For the President, the convention did not go as planned: Many of the pre-planned outcomes were not achieved. For instance, the media reported that President Goodluck Jonathan and his devotees failed in their effort to get other members to toe the party line; and that the disenchanted elements within the party outsmarted the President in substantive areas. In the end, therefore, he came out of the convention weak, drained and depressed.

The primary purpose of the convention was (a) to elect candidates into vacant positions in the National Working Committee of the party; (b) to come up with short and long term strategies in terms of the 2015 elections; (c) to share and or confirm who gets “what, when, and how” in terms of appointments, contracts, and monetary allocations; (d) to reconfirm President Jonathan as the party’s supreme leader; and (e) to rubber-stamp his wishes.

To be sure, items b and c are usually done in private. But the PDP is so confident of its supremacy it does not care much for secrecy anymore. When you’ve been in power for this long, arrogance and hubris begin to set it. Regrettably, the opposition has been in disarray for a while and unable to truly give the PDP a run for its money.

One of the most disingenuous parts of the whole episode was the excuse given for former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s absence. According to one of Obasanjo’s many assistants and gofers, Mr. Tunji Akinosi, “Obasanjo was down with cold.” Not cold and flu, but the common cold! He went on to say that it would have been “odd and embarrassing for the former president to be at the convention with the condition.” But hours after Jonathan was thoroughly embarrassed, Obasanjo visited a fallen Jonathan.

Although my sources have yet to tell me what transpired between the former and current President, their body and facial language said it all. To that you add the body and facial language of Mrs. Patience Jonathan who seemed lost and confused and spent. Obasanjo knew that Jonathan would be humiliated. He knew. His absence was deliberate. By being absent – and later rushing to the Presidential Villa – he wanted to drive home a point: “You need me!”

After all, for months on end, Jonathan and his proxies have been acting as though they did not need the former president. They tried to excommunicate him. They tried to make him irrelevant. And they also tried to turn the party against him. But Obasanjo is as tricky as a fox. He understood power. And he knows how to use it – especially within the Nigerian setting. He may not be that refined and sophisticated, but he is smart and clearly understands three things better than many of his contemporaries: Politics, power and Nigeria’s demons.

Hedrick Smith in The Power Game (1988) said, “Power is the ability to make something happen or to keep it from happening. It can spring from tactical ingenuity and jugular timing, or simply from knowing more than anyone else at the critical moment of decision.” That is Olusegun Obasanjo. Just as his refusal to show up at the PDP convention was long planned, his appearance at Jonathan’s side within hours of his inglorious defeat was also planned. Jonathan now understands that he cannot do without Obasanjo.

The reality is that Jonathan could have been his own man. Really, he could have been. But he is not. His is not because he does not like and or understand politics. He does not understand how the world works. You could say he is too good and too decent for Nigerian-style politics. He is naturally calm and amiable and gentle and monk-like. And he would have contributed more as a village chief, as a college professor or as a bureaucrat. Those who forced him into politics and who forced politics on him did him a disservice.

As the President of the Republic, and as the leader of his own party, how could he show up at a planned convention without being in charge of the known and unknown variables? No one should have been able to move, sit or stand without him knowing. He and his men and women should have been in charge of every single detail. But they were not. But instead, they allowed a former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, and some state governors to control the beat and the rhythm of the convention. The former vice-president must have balls to do what he did. Big balls!

The buzzword is that “Jonathan is finished…the PDP is finished.” I do not think so. Not yet. It is way too early to count the President and his party out of the 2015 elections. Nigeria is a country where anything can happen, and stranger things have happened in the 53 years history of the country. In this instance, what happened on August 31 may simply be a “lovers’ quarrel,” in which case the trio of Obasanjo, Jonathan and Atiku can still make up for the sake of the party (not necessarily for the sake of the country). All the President needs do is to make some concessions.

In the end, therefore, I do not see the PDP splintering into factions. If it splits, it’ll lose. And no sane organisation loves losing power and the billions of dollars, along with the trappings of office that come with being in power. It is therefore in its best interest to have a common front.

So, this is what is likely to happen: The party will hold a secret meeting much the same way the American Mafia held a meeting in the Apalachin, New York home of mobster Joseph Barbara, on November 14, 1957. On that occasion, Mafia bosses from Italy, Canada, the US and elsewhere showed up to iron out their differences.

But here is a caveat: if the Obasanjo and Atiku wings cannot reconcile their differences – or if both camps believe Jonathan is a liability — then, they will have no choice but to dump him. But if he remains on the ticket and wins, well, many of his opponents, especially Governor Rotimi Amaechi, would be hounded by the EFCC or he’ll have to go into exile as soon as he drops his hat in 2015.

He who hath ears...

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