PDP’s festering sore

The Peoples Democratic Party’s self-inflicted problem is festering. Ali Modu Sheriff, removed as chairman at PDP’s Port-Harcourt convention, is not going away quietly. This Frankenstein monster is teaching PDP the lessons of its life; to wit, crass opportunism is a vice. Want a free political lunch? Get ready to have raw pepper sprayed in your eyes! Sheriff is fighting dirty.

His is a case of the rabbit: he either eats the beans or he scatters the whole lot. Sheriff is prepared to scatter PDP if he is not allowed to have his way. But having his way is said to be too costly a venture for many of PDP’s leaders.

Sheriff is said to harbour presidential ambitions. While party leaders who head-hunted him as interim chairman thought they could use him to re-build the party, Sheriff himself had other ideas.

This, then, is a clear case of “cunning man die, cunning man bury am”. Ultimately, however, Sheriff will kiss the canvass because the momentum is no longer with him, especially after the PDP Board of Trustees threw their weight behind the caretaker committee set up by majority PDP leaders at the Port-Harcourt convention. Soon, he may have his hands full with the EFCC already tucking into his babariga.

The moment PDP governors deserted Sheriff; his political career on PDP’s platform came to an abrupt end. Reports had it that Ekiti state’s Gov. Ayodele Fayose was the arrow-head of the sponsors of Sheriff; after which he got his colleagues to buy into the project.

For as long as Sheriff played by the rules there was no hoopla, but the former governor of Borno state showed his hands too early. Not only did he plot to overstay his welcome in office as chairman, he reportedly also began to dig-in, building political structures that, if allowed to mature and take root, would have seriously whittled, if not completely annihilate, the relevance of his sponsors. So the decision was made to expunge the cancerous growth before it festers and does untold damage.

I think Fayose and others have learnt their lessons: Cutting political corners is extremely dangerous when it backfires. In his characteristically humorous manner, Fayose has not denied that he supported Sheriff; but has said if a wife you purposed to marry is discovered on the wedding day to be HIV-positive, will you still go ahead with the exchange of vows? Of course, not many men – or women, as the case may be – will be audacious enough to take the risk.

With PDP governors waving him bye-bye, Sheriff’s fate is sealed. He deludes himself if he thinks he is going anywhere. The forces ranged against him are just too much for him to overcome. Not even a helping hand from the ruling APC, as some PDP leaders are alleging, will avail him much; neither will the courts, whose orders he brandishes at every turn. Sheriff’s alibi holds no water; he is like a drowning man clinging to all manner of straws.

If the courts had stopped the Port-Harcourt convention, what was he doing there? Was he not the one who sanctioned the setting up\composition of the convention committee? His appearance before the committee to be accredited confirms his approval of, and deference to it. Once the convention committee has taken office, could Sheriff interfere in its constitutionally-assigned roles?

I seldom put anything beyond politicians; therefore, I will not be surprised if APC tries to profit from the misfortunes of PDP; if circumstances were reversed, PDP could do likewise. But my advice: Let APC heed the advice given to Okonkwo concerning the “sacrificial lamb” Ikemefuna in Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” – “Bear no hand in his death”. APC should have no hand in PDP’s current travails. As they say, let the child die from the hands of its parents.