By Godwin Mmaduihe 

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was a great party founded on the bedrock of equity, fairness, and justice. Its zoning principles as enshrined in its constitution gave the party an edge ahead of others. It was once the ruling party for more than a decade and a half. They may not have provided the best of good governance, especially at the national level, but they were stable and maintained uninterrupted transitions.

It is an axiomatic fact that what led to the PDP,s lost of power at the centre in 2015 was the failure of the party's bigwigs and leaders especially from the South to abide by the zoning and other situational and circumstantial agreements that characterised the sudden death of then President Umaru Musa Yaradua in 2010. This position was affirmed and confirmed by Senator Ike Ekweremmadu's Post  2015 election committee set up by PDP national leadership  in their report.

That singular development and roles played by certain PDP leaders who were men of immediacy contributed to the beginning of the party's lingering problems.  

Worst hit by the development were the party members from Southeast region , whose post Yar Adua's roles and dispositions were nothing to write home about. The then national chairman of the party Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, who once boasted that the party would remain in power for 60 years and was forcefully removed from office for insisting on maintenance of the zoning principles after Yar Adua's demise laughed last after 2015.

If not for the usual selfish reason, greed and lack of integrity,  sincerity and political sagacity on the part of some of PDP leaders, PDP wouldn't have lost power at the centre in 2015 and APC wouldn't have happened. It was PDP leaders' greed and political miscarriage and miscalculation that paved the way for APC victory in 2015.

This will be a story for another day because yours truly was in the know-how and had documentary evidence, having been actively involved as a journalist in the coverage of several meetings at Transcorp Hotel Abuja.

It is obvious that after losing power at the centre in 2015, PDP has been struggling as a party. Some committed and altrustic members stood by the party while some serial political defectors and prostitutes jumped in and out of the party when it suited them.

In what looked like pacification and compensation of the North over the sudden demise of then President Yar Adua in 2010 and his successor, President Goodluck Jonathan's failure to abide by the gentleman agreement of sustaining  zoning, which was majorly responsible for the PDP's loss of Presidency in 2015, the North was given the party's presidential ticket in 2019 with a defector, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as presidential candidate and running mate respectively.

The North enjoyed the support of the South in that direction and didn’t raise any eyebrow, though Atiku lost the election to Buhari. Fairly and justly, it was expected that with  President Muhammadu Buhari's eight years that terminated in 2023, the Northern PDP bigwigs would have supported a Southern presidential candidate in 2023 in sustenance of the zoning principles of the party and fairness.

They failed to do so even when the major financers and active members of the party, like Nyesom Wike and others, then were from the South. At the 2023 PDP presidential primaries, the conspiracy theory of the North was executed and handy to be used, then was the immediate past Governor of Sokoto State and Wike's ally, Senator Aminu Tambuwal Atiku, against all odds, won the presidential ticket to surprise and disappointment of many, especially the Southern leaders and members of the party, who felt cheated and marginalized.

The emergence of the G-5 Governors of the party led by Nyesom Wike, who insisted that for equity, balance and fairness that the next president of the country after Buhari's eight years should come from the South changed the equation in the party and ignited a new debate and power struggle.

The G-5 Governors remained adamant, pushful, and consistent in their quest for a President of Southern extraction in 2023 as against their party's candidate that was from the North. This push came to realization with the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of APC as president of the country.

After the 2023  election, the struggle for the soul of the PDP continued unabated, making some governors and a good number of its elected members to defect to APC, just as the G-5 Governors led by Wike insisted that the 2027 Presidential ticket of the party should be zoned to the South and national chairmanship position  zone to the North for peace and inclusiveness.  other,  especially from the North,  who wanted to hijack the party platform to pursue their 2027 presidential ambition thought otherwise.

This development brought about the lingering crisis and disagreements in the party,  until recently when some of the party's members known for serial defection joined the new coalition under the platform of African Democratic Congress (ADC). No doubt, their defection to ADC has brought some stability, reconciliation and repositioning in the PDP as the party in their recently concluded National Executive Committee (NEC) zoned the party's 2027 presidential ticket to the South and party national chairmanship position to the North in line and in  sync with the position of the G-5 Governors and what they have stood for before and after the 2023 general elections.

It is expected that with this development, the party leadership, bigwigs, and members across the divide will form a common front ahead of the party's national convention in Ibadan slated for November. This is because the coast is now very clear, and every member knows the direction ahead of 2027 elections. 

This cohesive development is expected to stem the tide of defections in the party, strengthen and reposition the party as the most formidable and known opposition party in the country ahead of 2027 elections.