Tony Amadi
Does anyone still need evidence that Senator Modu Sheriff, Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, according to the courts is a ruling party planted mole in the PDP, a party he spent most of his political life opposing. His sensational workout of a planned conciliatory meeting under the aegis of former President Jonathan was the final evidence needed to show that the podgy politician from Borno state is the poisoned chalice responsible for the deadly cancer ravaging the party that once held sway in its 18-year-old life.
While everyone was busy looking for the way to get the party out of its seemingly unending chemotherapy treatment for malignant cancer, Sheriff was out to administer more deadly poison that will lead the party to the cemetery and final rites. And these antics was coming two years to a crucial national election. Walking out of the meeting with his bloated ego in tow, the former governor said: “The party as of today has one national chairman, which is Ali Modu Sheriff. There is no PDP meeting that will take place under any arrangement that I will not make the opening remarks as the national chairman”.
How can you make opening remarks in a peace meeting you are invited as a factional leader in which the final legal decision still remain to be decided by the Supreme Court? It was like asking General Odumegwu Ojukwu to make opening remarks at Aburi rather than General Ankrah, the Ghanaian leader who called the peace meeting between Gowon and Ojukwu to resolve the Nigerian civil war before it generated into full scale war.
Sheriff had been holed up in Ndjamena, Chad and close to the Chadian President Idriss Deby long before he decided to re-enter Nigerian politics after he unwittingly opened the way to Boko Haram to reduce his former political fiefdom to ruins. He has a private jet with which he shuttles around, but had a good eye on the issues of Nigerian politics following the end of his reign as governor of Borno State. Having lost his stranglehold on Borno ANPC, the former ruling party in the state and following the formation of the APC, Sheriff quietly romanced the PDP at the heights of its glory days and joined them as a leading moneybag who can turn the fortunes of the party.
He carried the air of a very wealthy politician with a lot of money to throw around and got attracted to some PDP governors and top politicians in the former ruling party. Everyone saw Sheriff as the shining star who will take the PDP to the next level and flocked around him before the bubble burst on his so called riches. This was just happening when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission became interested in his affairs. The governors found that he didn’t even have the kind of money he was touted to have and that he was simply a gold digger who depended on them to boost his private fortunes.
At the bungled Port Harcourt convention, the party chieftains decided that it was time to call Sheriff’s bluff and remove him as party chairman. But Sheriff fought his corner and refused to bulge and precipitated a major infighting that was to tear the party into two factions. The credentials of the other factional leader and former Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, was more widely acceptable to the majority of party men and women, but the courts were unconcerned with any of that belief.
If the highly anticipated final judgement by the Supreme Court favours the Sheriff wing of the party, it will clearly be nunc dimitis for the former great party, but if it goes to the faction run by Makarfi, it will be seen as a breath of new life to the party which held sway for one and a half decade in the affairs of Nigeria. As short sighted as most Nigerian politicians are, many leading politicians are caught in a vicious quagmire as the 2019 elections creeps in and the PDP is neither here nor there.
Obviously, it is in the interest of the new ruling party, the APC, that the PDP remain incapacitated so that it can sweep through the 2019 polls even with its so far questionable performance. And as long as Sheriff continues to play the tune of the ruling party, his EFCC problems could be swept under the carpet not to mention the advantage of his in-law status in the presidential mansions.
Meanwhile most politicians are confused as they fashion out a strategy for their future after 2019. Many PDP legislators are worried about their future and wondering which way to go, join the ruling party or remain in a balkanized PDP. Even the APC legislators are quite uncomfortable themselves, because of the lack of leadership in their party and as usual, Mr President’s taciturn approach to party politics. He is not prepared to give anyone any clue about his political future even with the 30-page El Rufai private memo which was leaked in desperation by the author last month.
After over a decade of trying to become the president of the federal republic of Nigeria, it will be un-Buhari to bow out mid-term for any reason, so that the issue of a second term for the President rests in the innermost precincts of his heart which only the Almighty God has access. So the APC young Turks who dream of taking over from Mr President are indeed on a wild goose chase which the end might find them getting into some trouble for daring an accomplished general.
The road to 2019 is obviously littered with pot holes of an incredible nature. The PDP will be as good as dead if Sheriff ends up as the authentic chairman after the Supreme Court judgement, but if Makarfi wins, the ruling party will be in real trouble not only because many PDP decampees to the APC will seek a return to their former party but because the reasons that made PDP lose in 2015 have become the reasons that will make the ruling party potentially lose in 2019.
But since both parties will focus on Northern presidential candidates and southern vice presidential candidates, the North will have to seek for a man or woman who can assure Nigerians that the events of May 2015 to May 2017 when hunger gripped the nation because of the apparent lack of good governance by the ruling party does not repeat itself again in our history.
Incidentally, one powerful group known as Build Nigeria Global, BNG, came up with an interesting list of Nigerian leaders one of who it believes could be president in May 2019 with Modu Sheriff making the list. The group led by Godspower Bello named the following as Nigerian politicians who can win the presidential elections. They are as follows: President Muhammadu Buhari, Sule Lamido, Abubakar Atiku, Ghali Umar Na’abba, Bukola Saraki, Ahmed Tinubu, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Rochas Okorocha, Nasiru El Rufai, Ibrahim Dankwanbo, Rotimi Amaechi, Aminu Tambuwal, Ibrahim Shekarau, Ken Nnamani, Orji Uzo Kalu, Peter Obi and Modu Sheriff. Newspaper reports say that President Olusegun Obasanjo wants an Igbo candidate but the BNG leader thinks that zoning should be discarded so that Nigerians can vote for who they want to give them a decent leadership which has been lacking for too long now.
Senator Sheriff who has hinted that he won’t count himself among those that will contest for the PDP chairmanship, already has his sights on becoming the presidential candidate of the PDP since he insists that his faction should produce the next national working committee of the party and help rubber stamp his presidential plans. Unfortunately, not many party men rate him highly for the presidency, especially as he would be exceeding the mandate of his paymasters in the ruling party with such a dream.
As for who emerges president from the Build Nigeria Global list, I will not be surprised if the incumbent retains his seat not because he has done very well all things considered, but he has shown that the security of the nation and anti-corruption fight he has waged are in good hands. These are probably the most crucial problems facing the nation apart from the economy at this point in time but the President must note that it is not only PDP members that are corrupt. His party men are much more deeply involved in the Nigerian corruption index and his goals will not be achieved unless he deals with all of them irrespective of their party affiliation.
Finally, the President’s democratic credentials may have improved marginally, with his religious obedience of the constitution in relation to the National Assembly and the non-interference with who produces their leaders unlike the national leader of his party who insists on not recognizing Senator Bukola Saraki as President of the Senate despite his strong leadership of the upper chamber and the chairman of the national legislature. The obedience of court orders has been a sticking point against the administration as well but crucially, he must achieve success with the economy in the remaining two years to 2019 or no one will take a second term ambition very seriously.
Amadi, a veteran journalist, writes from Abuja
