Old wine in new bottle: New thinking in PDP

In a bid to bolster itself against difficult tides, the former ruling party resurrects the online registration of members project. It is a scheme that would inevitably strip the party’s governors of direct control of the party. Will it fly?

It was in admission of the tight grip its governors hold on the party, that the acting national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Prince Uche Secondus said last Wednesday that the e-registration of party members would open the party to all Nigerians.

Even more remarkable, Secondus said that all members would through the process have equal rights. That is, ordinary party members would have a say contrary to the present situation where the powerful governors dominate.

“This party belongs to all. They will have equal rights to vote and to be voted for. Nobody will be excluded,” Secondus said at the inauguration of the committee to enforce the project. The committee is headed by media mogul, Chief Raymond Dokpesi.

The chairman’s claim that the party would be opened to all was reflective of the fact that the self acclaimed biggest political party in Africa had reached its tethers and needed to reinvent itself.

It was especially so after the election drubbing in the hands of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Secondus became the third party chair to project the e-registration exercise after previous attempts by first Dr. Okwezileze Nwodo in 2010 and Alhaji Bamanaga Tukur in 2012/13 were aborted.

Dr. Nwodo was the first to conceive the idea of e-registration even before he became the national chairman.

Party insiders say that he had met President Goodluck Jonathan during the latter’s first official trip to the United States in 2010 and reportedly advised him on how he could take away the party from the governors almost all of who had opposed his emergence as acting president during the crisis that shadowed the illness of President Umaru Yar‘Adua.

Ticket of the party

Jonathan apparently eager to sidestep the governors in his bid to win the 2011 presidential ticket of the party had bought the idea with aplomb and had as such supported Nwodo’s return to the PDP national secretariat as national chairman.

Nwodo was the second national secretary of the party and had exited the party during the troubles that characterised the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Nwodo’s submission, it was learned, was that opening the party through the e-registration of members would not just open the party, but give the ordinary members a voice in the emergence of candidates.

Jonathan interestingly flagged off the e-membership registration exercise on August 10, 2010 when he was registered at the PDP national secretariat.

He was registered in the presence of Nwodo, the then Senate President, Senator David Mark, the then national secretary, Prince Uche Secondus among others. He praised the party leadership to high heaven for the initiative which he said would also generate the funds needed to run the party.

The president had described as “the best thing to have happened to party membership registration in Nigeria , in the 21st Century.”

The online registration exercise according to the party was expected to register at least six million persons as members of the party.
However, the exercise was not long after upturned when PDP governors mobilised to truncate it. Their grouse was that Nwodo was conniving with Jonathan to lessen the influence of the governors on the party.

The main thrust of having registered members was to ensure that only registered members were able to vote and contribute to the funding of the party. Until then, the party was almost wholly funded by the governors.

The governors saw through the alleged aims of Nwodo and the president and forced the president to call the party leadership to order and not too long after, the exercise was aborted.

The bad blood flowing from the aborted exercise culminated partly in the machination that led to the exit of Nwodo as national chairman. Jonathan apparently desperate to win the party’s ticket caved in to the pressure of the governors and sacrificed Nwodo and that became the end of the online registration exercise.

Tukur who came into office in 2012 also revived the e-membership registration project and it was not surprising that for most of his time in office he was in battle with the governors.

Internal retreat

Tukur was won over to the scheme after an internal retreat for party executives in Uyo in December 2012.
At that retreat where his predecessor, Nwodo delivered a lecture titled

“Deepening Democracy through Internal Party Democracy: Strategies for conducting credible, free and fair party congresses and primaries,” the former party chairman had urged the party to revisit the online registration project as a means of boosting party membership and funds.

“We all know that he who plays the piper dictates the tune. There are known ways enshrined in the constitution of the party by which the party is funded. “What we are not used to in Nigeria are innovative ways of utilising these avenues. I have consistently advocated e-registration as a way of raising funds for the party. “By this module, nobody is disenfranchised from registering in the party. The registration fees and annual dues go straight to the coffers of the party.”

Wrath of the governors

Following the retreat, Tukur commenced moves to revive the online registration and by that inevitably incurred the wrath of the governors, and not surprisingly, a year later, he was forced out of office.

For the full story, check the Vanguard newspaper.