Drawing from a deep historical perspective, urges South East to forge new political alliances to regain lost political and economic grounds under the Peoples Democratic Party.

The serial humiliation of the South East region by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), especially can be likened to the story of an irresponsible husband that has thoroughly abused a loyal and obedient wife. Although PDP owes a significant chunk of its history, electoral fortunes, and survival till this day to the region, the party has not really been fair to Ndigbo. The height of it is the rigmarole over the position of National Secretary.

But before we get there, a historical background becomes imperative because a man, who does not know his history, urinates on the graves of his forefathers. Born in 1998, PDP is an offshoot of the G-34, a group of fearless Nigerians led by the second Republic Vice President, late Dr. Alex Ekwueme. When it was convenient and lucrative to dine and wine with the General Sani Abacha junta, these men risked their lives and estates to challenge Abacha, and demanded the military to go back to the barracks.

The natural thing would have been for Ekwueme to fly the party’s presidential flag in 1999. It is actually a fact of history that one of the founding fathers of PDP, AlhajiLawalKaita had, during the party’ formative years pushed for a clause that would make Ekwueme the party’s sole presidential candidate. Ekwueme explained why he turned this down in a no-holds barred interview published in a national newspaper in August, 2009  His words: “I said we should not let people conclude that all we did at the constitutional conference, to the all politicians summit, which I chaired, to the Institute of Civil Society, which I chaired, the G-34, which I chaired and the party, which I was then chairing was merely calculated to make me presidential candidate of the party by fiat without going through any democratic process.”

Nevertheless, AlhajiKaita’s worst fears came to pass at PDP’s presidential primary in Jos, the Plateau State capital, where Ekwueme was thrown under the bus. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo emerged in what many have likened to a man dropping through the roof to take over a house you laboured to build and eventually throwing you out through the window. They said the military and “owners of Nigeria” wanted to compensate the South West for the wrong done to the Yoruba via the annulment of M.K.O Abiola’s election on June 12, 1993. And which animal’s head would be more suitable for this appeasement sacrifice than that of the cockerel, in this case the Igbo man, who had no chair at the discussion table?

The cold breakfast on the plateau notwithstanding, Ekwueme and the South East rallied a humongous 3.2 million votes for Obasanjo’s election. This represents 78 percent of votes they cast in the 1999 presidential election. They took it a notch higher in 2003, delivering 4.5 million votes to Chief Obasanjo’s re-election bid. That election was remarkable in the sense that the highly revered EzeigboGburugburu, Dim ChukwuemekaOdumegwuOjukwu, was also on the presidential ballot.

Remarkably also, when the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua ran with a son of the South South, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan in 2007, the South East chose him over and above his Katsina kinsman, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), who had their son, Chief Mike Ahamba (SAN) as the vice-presidential candidate.

Fast-forward to 2011 after the unfortunate demise of Yar’Adua, Jonathan got 4,985,246 votes from the South East, while former Vice President, AlhajiAtikuAbubakar of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) got 76,228 votes. It did not matter that their son, Senator Ben Obi, was Atiku’s running mate. During Jonathan’s re-election bid in 2015, the region queued behind the PDP, once again. The lowest vote amassed by the PDP in the five states of the South East was 79.55 percent  in Imo State. Anambra gave 98.42 percent of their votes to Jonathan and zero percent to Buhari.

2015 was not different. As a matter of fact, whereas most PDP traditional strongholds betrayed or revolted in the face of the “Change” fever that swept through the country, leading to the party’s loss, the South East showed up for Jonathan and PDP.

In fact, it was too hard for Buhari that he swore to never forget or forgive the region. He swore in faraway Washington that he would never treat the people that gave him five percent of their votes as equals with those who gave him 98 percent.

As a result, the region was totally excluded from strategic positions, including the armed forces and related agencies. It was so bad that Buhari regime extended the tenure of the Commandant-General (CG) of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), AbdullahiGana Muhammadu, by six months beyond his July 2021 retirement date, just to sidestep the most senior officer, Hilary Kelechi Madu. When the CG eventually left in January 2021, Madu could barely open the handover notes he received from the retired CG before Buhari kicked him out and appointed Ahmed Abubakar Audi as the new CG of NSCDC. Also, CalistusNwabueze Obi was removed four days after his appointment as Acting Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Baba HarunaJauro appointed as a replacement.

Again, but for Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s return as Deputy Senate President by a stroke of luck in June 2015, the South East could have gone for a whole eight years without a principal officer of the Federal Government. Buhari’s scorched earth policy was such that none of the two or three  APC House of Representatives members of the South East extraction was considered for any principal office the House of Representatives.

Furthermore, the region was totally excluded from the railway development projects powered by Chinese loans. Most ridiculously, Buhariprioritised a new railway project from Kano to Maradi in Niger Republic over the Eastern Rail Line that should have served the South East.

But South East PDP leaders were not deterred and party faithful as the region became the heartbeat of the opposition. They stayed put in the party and worked with other leaders to rescue and rebuild the party. The likes of Atiku, Senator BukolaSaraki, Hon. YakubuDogara, then governors Samuel Ortom, Aminu Tambuwal, Abdulfatah Ahmed, and other political heavyweights were rallied back and PDP became viable again.

The PDP 2015 Post Election Review Committee headed by Ekweremadu recommended the zoning of the presidential ticket to the North to compensate for the 2015 mistake and ensure a fellow northerner squared up to Buhari. They gave PDP massive support in 2019.                                     Therefore, in 2023, a just party should have naturally zoned the presidential ticket to the South East region, it was their turn.  It should have been a two-horse race between Senator Bola Tinubu and Mr. Peter Obi or any other South Easterner. But the closer the party got to the 2023 election, the clearer it became that PDP leaders were not ready for a President of Igbo extraction. First, Governor Dave Umahi, shipped off, citing this reason. Next, Obi left.

Pray, how did PDP think it was okay for power to remain in the North after Buhari’s eight years, but an anathema for a South Easterner to fly the party’s flag? Even Jonathan for whose sake the region suffered tribulation under Buhari could not put his foot down to demand justice for the region. Instead, he became a frequent visitor to Aso Villa, hobnobbing Buhari. There were even stories that he was being primed to succeed Buhari as the only southerner restricted to just one term by the constitution or that power would revert to its “owners” in 2027.

As if that injustice that tore votes in PDP’s strongholds between Atiku and Obi, leading to the party’s loss in the 2023 presidential election was not enough, the same party is today playing games. Rather than stamp their feet against the excesses of Senator Samuel Anyanwu and his enabler-in-chief, NyesomWike, the South East PDP is dilly-dallying over the position of National Secretary. They have been made to go through the process of nominating Hon. Udeh-Okoye many times without success.

It was therefore thoroughly disappointing for many Ndigbo that the last National Executive Committee (ZEC) meeting of the South East PDP in Enugu ended up issuing just threats. Excerpt of the meeting’s communique, wherein the party re-nominated Hon. Udeh-Okoye to serve out the remaining term of the National Secretary warned that “in the event that our position is not promptly implemented by the Party, the South East PDP, as a family, will be compelled to reconsider our relationship with the PDP going forward.”

If, as the Chairman of PDP’s Board of Trustees, Senator Adolphus Wabara, rightly observed, the party has trampled the South East; if as former governor of Imo State, Chief AchikeUdenwa, fumed, the party had taken the South East for granted for too long, what then is the South East still doing in PDP?  Expectedly, the last PDP NEC meeting was wishy-washy, and dialed to make a categorical statement on Udeh-Okoye

Indeed, it is surprising that the South East has remained in PDP after the disrespect of 2023, for PDP committed a mortal sin in the last election when it denied the region the presidential ticket. And the Bible is clear that the soul that sins shall die. That is the terminal sickness liquidating the PDP today.

South East PDP leaders should now act like the sons of Issachar, able to discern the times and what Ndigbo ought to do.

It is time to think strategically and forge new political alliances that serve the region’s short, medium, and long term political and economic interests. It is time to connect to the centre and allow PDP, that brutal husband that abuses his loyal wife to please his wayward concubines, to die a natural death.