A new PDP: Time for bold action

A new PDP: Time for bold action

By Our Reporter  on November 30, 2015   Politics


An undelivered re­marks by Senator Ken Nnamani, former Senate President, at the PDP Re­birth Conference on No­vember 12, 2015 in Abuja.
I will like to paraphrase Charles Dickens to say that for the PDP members this may be the worst of times. But it is also the best of times. It is the worst of times because we have lost a major and im­portant election and we are witnessing massive roll­back of some of the major achievements of the years past. But it is also the best of times because we seri­ously needed a time out to meticulously review our game plan and our strate­gic message to the Nige­rian People. We may have been under the illusion that we were effectively communicating with the people whereas the people have left us. So, being in the cold at this period is refreshing for our people. We now have a rare op­portunity to come to grips with the reality.
Many of the people who are very pained that we lost the presidential elec­tion have needlessly been blaming ourselves. This blame game should not continue. We lost the elec­tion because we deserved to lose. We had run out of policy gas. We worked hard to lose the election.
Now is time for renewal and renewal requires stra­tegic thinking and bold actions. Many years ago, I worked together with some of my colleagues in the PDP and we foresaw this moment. We predicted that the PDP needed to keep faith with its cardinal principles and values in other to sustain its leader­ship of Nigerian politics. How I wished our other colleagues listened to us in those days. We would have averted the disaster of the 2015 electoral defeat. Some of those who con­tributed immensely to the PDP electoral defeat shut us down and refused to hear our voice of wisdom. This is past now. There is no time for recrimination and self-adulation. It is time for clarity and effec­tive action.
It is time for genuine embrace of internal de­mocracy. The New PDP should become the sym­bol of internal democracy. Our rebranding should first start with real commitment to internal democracy. I suggest that before we go further on this journey let all those who desire to lead PDP in formal or informal positions of authority pub­licly declare a new code of conduct. The heart of this code of conduct will be an oath to always promote and protect internal de­mocracy. Beyond the code, the new PDP must put in its constitution expulsion for any party official at all levels who deliberately subverts the process of in­ternal democracy. Impuni­ty must end now. Impunity does not end with mere words or declarations. It includes clear sanctions for violation of core te­nets of party systems. It is common knowledge that we lost many states to the APC because we deliber­ately refused to conduct primaries that allow our party members to vote for the candidate of their choice. If we have been less reckless in manage­ment of party politics we would have gained at least four more states and per­haps won the presidential election. But we shot our­selves on the foot.
I think we should go the full hog and write into the new constitution that all primaries in the new PDP will be conducted in open congresses where all registered party members have equal vote. This is very radical. But we need radical responses to a ter­rible situation. Someone may say that even in Unit­ed States, the symbol of democracy, primaries, are sometimes based on del­egates. But we can do bet­ter than the United State. We can deepen democracy by making primaries fully democratic.
As a leader of the pro­scribed PDP Reform Fo­rum, I took the clear po­sition that we must be a party ruled by law not by men. I have long known that a rule-based system is superior to a discretion-based system. Godfather­ism is a weak framework to build a system that can deliver its mandate. The weight of contradiction of reckless abandonment of our core values and rules is what has drowned the ship of PDP in the waters of Ni­gerian politics.
Now there is a new re­solve. We need to translate the resolve into redemp­tive actions. We must start with enhancing the leader­ship capacity in the party. We should start by build­ing strong administrative structure for the party that will win election in the Nigeria of the future and transform the country from the current underdevelop­ment. We need to have technocrats manage the PDP. We should now ex­plore having a small group of policy wonks that have strategic policy and com­munication skills to guide us in the rebirth of PDP. We should no longer be a party that detests intellectual­ism. More politics is about the deployment of intellect to address complex social problems. This is time to embrace intellectualism in PDP. Let us start with hav­ing a smart group set up the structure of a new PDP. We should stop mourning and start organising. We should start afresh on the basis of unalloyed com­mitment to discipline and internal democracy.
These could be the best of times and not really the worst.