What a shameful and disgraceful episode that we are witnessing again in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after our apologies and pledge to Nigerians to do away with impunity and embrace transparency many years ago!

We pleaded that the era of impunity was gone and that we would be law-abiding and do our best to achieve the expectations of the people.

Can we really say that our words are good? We need to feel the pulse of the nation to find out what people’s thoughts are about our party at this point in time.

It has been one year and seven months since the last general election that exposed the party’s weaknesses, particularly in the area of crisis management and cultural sensitivity to which the party had not paid attention over the years.

The party is a very big and complex organisation yet its operation has been very constrained in terms of its ability to deal with the challenges facing it today. Where was the National Working Committee (NWC) when the decision to open up the contest for the presidential election was made?

No problem, the winner was embraced. When the choice for the presidential running mate was selected by the committee set up by the NWC and the crisis erupted, what did NWC do to contain the situation?

And when the damage was done after the election was over, what has the NWC done to prevent and minimize the damage to the party?

Here we are about one year and eight months after the 2023 elections. Our party is dancing around the fire with no solution to the problems at hand. Is this really PDP; big, strong and super-achieving PDP? How are the mighty fallen? Why has the mighty remained sprawled on the ground?

Are we saying that the general public is more concerned about the party than the NWC? Leaders continue to trade blame on issues that divide the party instead of moving it forward. I believe it is about time that we dug deeper into the real challenges of this party in order to find solutions to the problems.

PDP is a complex organisation that requires effective and innovative approaches to leadership in order to achieve its goals. We cannot continue to run the party as it was administered decades ago.

I believe the founding fathers would be disappointed to learn that our party has failed to build on the foundation left behind.

The lack of dynamism in the management of this party is largely responsible for most of the problems we have experienced. It may as well be so, but it has demonstrated our lack of ability to take decisions that were consequential to our party losing the 2023 elections.

The nation was disappointed with the lackluster performance of APC in office between 2015 and 2023 and therefore looking forward to the most viable alternative party, PDP, to come back and rescue the nation. But due to lack of a purpose driven agenda and visionary leadership and due to mismanagement of our internal conflict, we lost the election.

This loss was painful to most members of our party and the nation at large. In spite of this lost opportunity, our party is still struggling with the same problems it suffered before the election, one year and seven months after.

It is disgraceful to say the least that we are still struggling to put our house in order after a defeat which was a home-goal inflicted on the party.

PDP would by now have been outstanding if we had been able to put our differences aside and come to terms with the loss to our party.

Our governors, the National Working Committee and the National Executive Committee had met many times since the end of the last election and little attention was paid to the problems.

The governors can be excused because they are not in charge of the day-to-day running of the party. But the NWC had no excuse for not activating the mechanism to address the lingering issues destabilizing our party.

Must we continue to travel down this evil road where the highest structures of our party are being ridiculed by the general public?

It is unimaginable that the party of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan should be so reduced and subjected to public ridicule for a lack of leadership skills. The party’s two foremost citizens, Atiku Abubakar and Ifeanyi Okowa, have a role to play in resolving this problem.

They must serve as a rallying point for those patriots who are committed to seeing PDP return to its glory days. Let’s do something about this challenge now, if indeed this party will remain viable for the next general election.

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