The Peoples Democratic Party, which described itself as the biggest political party in Africa, has been adopting series of tactics to woo members of the opposition in its bid to win elections,FISAYO FALODIwrites
The activities of the Peoples Democratic Party seem to have given credence to a claim by a former National Chairman of the party, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, that the party would rule Nigeria for 60 years.
The way the PDP has been embracing defectors, especially key opposition members into its camp, indicates that the party is set to achieve its desire to rule the country for a long time.
Though they say politics is a game of number, the PDP appears to have adopted what may be described as “workable tactics” and “traps” which involve dangling unavoidable baits before members of the opposition for the purpose of wooing them from their political parties. With the way the PDP has been implementing these schemes since the beginning of the current political dispensation, some social commentators believe that the party may break the rank of the opposition by wooing a sizeable number of its major supporters.
Analysts are of the opinion that the PDP first put this scheme to test in December 2004 when it dangled the bait of higher office before the current Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, who was the senator elected to represent Lagos Central on the platform of the defunct Alliance for Democracy at the National Assembly. Obanikoro, with other former AD chieftains like Adeseye Ogunlewe, dumped the AD for the PDP. To compensate them, the PDP appointed Ogunlewe Minister of Works, while it gave Obanikoro its Lagos State governorship ticket in the 2007 general elections, but Obanikoro lost the poll to Babatunde Fashola, the candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, one of the political parties that transformed to the All Progressives Congress.
The PDP re-launched this method again in 2011 when it wooed a former Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Timi Alaibe, with the promise of giving him its ticket to contest for the Bayelsa State governorship position. Alaibe, who had declared his intention to contest for the governorship election on the platform of the Labour Party, immediately dumped the party for the PDP as a result of the overture.
Not long after the former President’s aide declared his intention to contest for the governorship election, several attempts by suspected assassins were made on his life. One of such attacks occurred at Alaibe’s Opokumoa residence in which six of his supporters were killed.
The attackers stormed his house while he was holding a meeting with political associates in connection with the planned launch of his governorship campaign. The attack came barely a few hours after a bomb explosion was allegedly launched against him and his supporters at the Port Harcourt Airport, but they narrowly escaped.
About 16 of the attackers were later arrested by the military Joint Task Force personnel while trying to escape in two buses loaded with arms.
The President’s aide, who spoke to journalists later, said that he suspected that the attackers were sponsored and that the incident would not deter him from pursuing his ambition.
Having realised that Alaibe was not ready to drop his ambition even in the face of the attacks on him and the killing of some of his supporters, the attackers again stormed his campaign office in Ogbia, headquarters of Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, early in the morning of the day the office was supposed to be inaugurated and bombed it.
The state government accused Alaibe of orchestrating violence, but the former President’s aide, who described the bombing as an unfortunate development, had said, “We were scheduled to open that office today for formal campaign activities. And just before we could do that, we were informed of the ugly incident.
“Politics is not about violence. It is about providing leadership. Politics is about providing for the people and not destroying them. To date, Bayelsa remains the only state in Nigeria where political campaigns of opposition parties are bombed at will.”
Despite the persistent attacks, Alaibe carried his intention to contest for the 2011 governorship position further by mobilising his supporters, especially youths across all the local government areas of the state. According to analysts, Alaibe’s support base sent jitters to the PDP’s spine and this development prompted the party national leaders to woo the former President’s aide to its fold.
In what may be described as a dramatic move, Alaibe shocked his supporters when he announced his return to the PDP and applied for a waiver to enable him to contest in the party’s primary.
Satisfied that it had successfully cajoled Alaibe to dump the LP, the PDP withdrew the waiver it initially granted the former President’s aide and also disqualified him from contesting the governorship primary on the grounds that he had not stayed for the mandatory two years in the party.
To social commentators, Alaibe lost the LP and the PDP governorship tickets as a result of his perceived failure to understand the implication of falling for the latter’s antics and tactics.
Just recently, the PDP spread its net before the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, with a promise to offer him the Adamawa State governorship by-election ticket.
Ribadu, who could not recall Alaibe’s experience, dumped the APC and embraced the PDP as well as applied for the party’s waiver. The APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, who seemed to have seen ahead that the PDP would not offer the former EFCC boss the governorship ticket, said, “For a man of that calibre to fall into that trap because of governorship position is disappointing.”
Again like Alaibe, the former EFCC chief fell into the PDP’s “trap” as he and other aspirants were asked by the party’s leaders to step down from the governorship by-election primary scheduled for September 6, 2015, after about four hours meeting held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja early in the morning of the previous day.
Sensing that Ribadu and others might be unhappy for being disallowed from participating in the primary, the PDP put forward another promise by asking them to shift their ambition till the 2015 general elections.
Even before he was asked to step down, the former Minister of Information and Ijaw National Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, had told the PDP leadership not to grant waiver to Ribadu to contest the party’s primary.
Claiming that the former EFCC boss had no electoral value, Clark said in an open letter addressed to the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, which he read to journalists in Abuja, that there was nothing positive Ribadu would bring to the ruling party.
He said, “What, really, is our party receiving so joyfully? What is the political value of this emerging treachery, the well-established bone-marrow trademark of the man, Ribadu?”
Though the PDP had said that Ribadu and others who it asked to step down from the race would be allowed to contest next year, commentators believe that the party might have achieved its aim of weakening the opposition in Adamawa State by wooing out the former EFCC boss from its fold.
But the PDP Chairman in Lagos State, Capt. Tunji Shelle, defended the party’s tactics, describing them as part of politics.
Shelle toldSaturday PUNCHin a telephone interview that the PDP would always go about its activities with focus and discipline.
He said that the former EFCC boss was not lured by the PDP, but decided on his own to join the party.
The PDP chieftain said, “Nuhu Ribadu is an adult. He decided on his own to join the PDP; not that the party lured him. So, for Ribadu to contest for an election was his own decision too, that he also decided to step down from the race was his own personal decision. It is not the question of someone being deceived.”
Shelle also defended the return of Alaibe to the PDP, stressing that the former President’s aide was originally a member of the party before he went to the LP.
He said, “Alaibe is a strong supporter of the PDP; he only went to the LP to challenge another PDP man. Defection is a common thing among Nigerian political parties; welcoming defectors by the PDP to its fold should not be misinterpreted because it is part of politics.”
Shelle, who expressed the PDP’s decision to win Nigerians’ votes during the next year general elections, refused to disclose the tactics the party would use.
He said, “We shall keep that close to our chest. We shall present credible candidates throughout the country so that Nigerians would be ready to vote for them.”http://www.punchng.com/politics/power-contest-pdps-antics-to-woo-the-opposition/