By Richard F Inoyo
1. I have learnt from my grandfather at a very tender age that it is important to speak truth and treat everyone with ethics and fairness irrespective of what I stand to gain or lose, that at the end, he who acts otherwise creates problem for himself and others, and too often, in a dangerous way with unprecedented and lethal outcomes.
2. The current PDP situation is a case in point. The outcomes of the 2023 Elections saw a huge defeat of PDP in several States across the country with 28 States now under the control of APC and other parties other than PDP, something that wasn't the case prior to PDP Gubernatorial and Presidential Primay Elections. But that isn't where it all began.
3. Now, let me start from where PDP's destruction all began to happen.
4. First, prior to the PDP presidential primary elections, we had had different governors and political leaders saying power must return back to Southern Nigeria, but Wike and some governors refused to demand that power shouldn't just return to the South, but should return to South-East of Nigeria. This lack of sincerity towards rotational justice to prevail for the good of where all Nigerians believe power should return to in South, which is South-East, constituted the basis for which PDP lost in the presidential election and other elections in 2023. Now let me show it to you.
5. Secondly, Atiku had no business contesting the last elections (primary and general elections) knowing that, power ought to return to South-East, but his greed and questionable ambition wouldn't let him to canvass for a South-Easterner. And it is this same greed of ambition shown by Wike that equally made Wike to want to contest for the presidency when he knew deep down in his most noble conscience that South-East ought to produce the next president, after Goodluck Jonathan had already represented South-South few years ago before 2015, a government which he served under as a Junior Minister.
6 That greed of ambitions shown by both Wike and Atiku was so deafening and blinding to the conscience of these two financial and political behemoths that they didn't consider the harm and anger it may cause against their party in certain quarters but most importantly the Nigerian voting population, neither did they see the sense in adopting and rallying a man like Peter Obi who was still in the party with the hope that he will be supported as at 2022. For Atiku and Wike, they thought everything was about money, they went ahead and use same to dig it out until they left Peter Obi with no option other than to leave and sign up for Labour Party_ a decision that would eventually give birth to the Obidient Movement and make Labour Party a serious contender.
7. First imagine what would have happened if both Atiku and Wike, had stepped down and sacrificed their ambitions to support a candidate like Peter Obi, there would have been no Obidient Movement or Labour Party_ at the very least, even if they were to be an Obidient Movement, Labour won't have had all the upsetting of traditional PDP seats across the country.
8. Now talking about the Gubernatorial Elections across the States of the Federation, for instance, in a State like Cross River, Wike had no reason supporting a Candidate from Central Cross River State, knowing that power ought to return to the Southern Part of Cross River State after the Central and Northern Senatorial Zones in the State had produced Governors over the last 16years, while the South had waited that long since Gov. Donald Duke left office in 2007_ sixteen solid years ago. But then, same arrogance and toxic ambition got a contender from Central to swing Wike to his side in the name of friendship, which would eventually foist Prof. Ben Ayade out of PDP to join the APC, and eventually hand the State APC Guber ticket to a Southerner in the person of Prince Bassey Otu_ something that PDP would have done by anointing and rallying behind one of the numerous and formidable Southerners in PDP then, people like Amb. Nkoyo Toyo, Sen. Ghersom Henry Bassey, Hon. Daniel Asuquo, etc.
9. If PDP had done the right and just thing in Cross River State without the toxic arrogance and expensive insensitive shown by some internal and external PDP leaders within and outside the State_ may be today, APC won't have had the huge victory she recorded in a State like Cross River State where several House of Assembly Seats, and The Governorship Seat were lost by PDP simply because of the avoidable injustice PDP's compromised leadership foist on its party, which angered most Cross Riverians against the choice of producing a candidate from Central.
10. People like me who naturally is apolitical from a civil society and private sector orientation, had to campaign against PDP in favour of Prince Bassey Otu who came from Southern Cross River based on my commitment to the idealism and ethicism of zoning and the brotherliness in power transition from one zone to another_ something that PDP had reason to promote which is already in her Constitution, but greed and compromise made her jettisoned it. It is that compromise that made PDP suffered the greatest defeat in Cross River State and elsewhere.
11. Finally, you have to blame Wike and Atiku for the failure of PDP to produce the next president in the last election, and you have to blame Wike and the candidate of the PDP in Cross River State for all the losses PDP suffered in Cross River State in the last State House of Assembly Elections and Gubernatorial Election.
12. In closing, we must always stand for whatever is right, just and fair. To do otherwise as my grandfather admonished, would only create problem for oneself and others, and too often, in a dangerous way with unprecedented and evil outcomes.
Let us all learn from history and always do right.
Signed
Richard F Inoyo,
Country Director,
Citizens' Solution Network