The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) – two political parties that ruled Nigeria since its return to civilian rule 22 years ago – have produced a total of 21 national chairmen and counting.
The PDP, which ruled the country since its return to democratic rule in 1999 for 16 years, has produced 16 chairmen in substantive or acting capacities in about 23 years of its existence. The APC, which defeated the PDP in 2015, has ruled for six years so far and has produced five chairmen since its formation in 2013.
Of the 16 PDP chairmen, only Chief Barnabas Gemade and Chief Ahmadu Ali were able to finish their first terms. The rest were thrown out by the crisis. In the eight years’ history of the APC, none of its chairmen finished a complete term.
The PDP produced Dr Alex Ekwueme, Chief Sunday Awoniyi, Chief Solomon Lar, Chief Barnabas Gemade, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Chief Ahmadu Ali, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, Dr Okwesileze Nwodo, Dr Bello Halliru Mohammed, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, Dr Bamanga Tukur, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, Prince Uche Secondus, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, and Prince Uche Secondus.
The ruling APC, on the other hand, produced Chief Bisi Akande, Chief Oyegun, Adams Oshiomhole, Victor Giadom and Mai Mala Buni.
PDP: 16 chairmen in 23 years
After its formation in 1998, Dr Ekwueme became its first pro tem national chairman, but stepped down after three months because of his presidential ambition. Chief Awoniyi emerged in an interim capacity briefly before Chief Lar, the Second Republic governor of the old Plateau State, stepped in. He oversaw the election which produced Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as president.
However, his influence began to wane immediately Obasanjo was inaugurated and foisted himself (Obasanjo) as the party’s national leader. The conflict between the national leader and the national chairman affected the party’s supremacy stance of the Lar administration and later consumed him. He exited the scene in November, 1999, and Chief Gemade became chairman.
Gemade’s leadership was also not less turbulent as his attempt to seek a return for another term in 2011 was opposed by Obasanjo who anointed his former Minister of Agriculture, Chief Ogbeh, to take over. Gemade, seeing that the odds were against him had to withdraw at the last minute during the special convention of the party, thereby paving way for Ogbeh to emerge unopposed close to the 2003 general elections.
The meddlesomeness was to also consume Ogbeh following his public criticisms of Obasanjo’s style of leadership. Ogbeh was elected to serve for four years following the adoption of amendments to the party’s constitution that extended the term of party officials.
However, towards the end of 2004, the tension between the president and the chairman over the state of affairs in the country and party worsened. Ogbeh had to give in by resigning after hosting a reconciliatory lunch of pounded yam on Obasanjo’s request in January of the following year. He was allegedly asked to sign a prepared resignation letter by the president after the meal.
Dr Ali, a former army officer who worked under Obasanjo as military head of state, replaced Ogbeh in acting capacity before he was elected substantive chairman in 2005. As a colleague and ally, Ali blended well with the president and had smooth sailing.
Obasanjo even said, “Now, Ali has come. Ali must stay.”
Ali became the president’s hatchet man and the term “garrison politics” was introduced as the language of PDP politics.
Ali introduced a re-registration exercise which barred perceived enemies of Obasanjo such as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar from registering. Atiku was forced to exit the party for the Action Congress (AC). Ali exited with Obasanjo in 2007 and the party chairmanship was zoned to the Southeast.
Mr Vincent Ogbulafor emerged as a consensus candidate out of the power play between two notable figures from Ebonyi State, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and former Governor Sam Egwu. Although President Umaru Yar’Adua took ill and later died, Ogbulafor’s tenure was not less controversial. His alliance with the cabal that dictated affairs of the country in the absence of the president irked party stakeholders with a group, the PDP Reform Forum, moving for the dissolution of the PDP National Executive Committee (NEC) and the National Working Committee (NWC). A criminal case which had been abandoned for many years was revived, forcing him to step down in 2010.
Following his exit, Dr Okwesileze Nwodo stepped in, but like most of his predecessors, his tenure was turbulent. His idea to introduce e-registration through which membership would be open to all fee-paying members at the grassroots pitched him against governors.
His travail was compounded by the discontent between him and his governor, Mr Sullivan Chime of Enugu, over power sharing formula. The development led to an injunction obtained from an Enugu High Court which stopped him from parading himself as the national chairman of the party.
He was forced out by the PDP governors led by its chairman, Bukola Saraki, and replaced by his deputy, Dr Mohammed, in acting capacity. When President Goodluck Jonathan appointed Dr Mohammed minister, Alhaji Kawu Baraje acted until Dr Bamanga Tukur was elected in March, 2012.
Tukur was Jonathan’s right hand man, and in an effort to give the president control of the party at the national level and remove what he called the governors overbearing influence on the party, Tukur reintroduced the e-registration idea and payment of dues at the ward level. Again, the development did not go down well with the governors, who vehemently resisted the move and forced Tukur out.
With Tukur’s exit, a former Bauchi State Governor Adamu Muazu, emerged chairman, but the controversy that resulted in the loss of his party to the APC in 2015 under his watch forced him to resign. He was suspected to have worked underground for the victory of the opposition APC, an allegation his aides have repeatedly denied. When he left, Secondus who was his deputy took over in acting capacity, but a former Borno State Governor Sheriff, was brought in to complete Mu’azu’s tenure in February, 2016.
Sheriff stirred a lot of controversy following his move to extend his stay thereby drawing the ire of the governors. A convention held in Port Harcourt to elect new officials was marred by a crisis which forced the party to put a caretaker headed by a former Kaduna State Governor, Senator Ahmed Makarfi. Secondus was to emerge substantive chairman after beating Professor Tunde Adeniran at the party’s national convention in 2017.
APC’s five chairmen in 8 years
The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) founded in 1998, Congress for Progressives Change (CPC) formed in 2009 and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), birthed in 2006 fused together to form APC in 2013.
Chief Okey Nwosu was the chairman of ANPP, while Senator Rufai Hanga was the pioneer chairman of CPC before Tony Momoh later took over. ACN on the other hand, had Chief Akande as chairman.
Akande was appointed in interim capacity during the APC’s formative years, while Odigie-Oyegun was elected its first substantive chairman on June 13, 2014. His tenure was marred by a crisis of confidence, especially from the National Leader of the party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s camp. Tinubu in October, 2016 openly accused Odigie-Oyegun of fraud and betrayal.
Some APC governors had also aligned with Tinubu, but President Muhammadu Buhari stood by him. However, pressure continued to mount forcing him to jettison his ambition to seek re-election in 2018. He was replaced by Oshiomhole who is also from his home state of Edo.
However, the crisis also caught up with Oshiomhole’s leadership early as many stakeholders were uncomfortable with his combative style of leadership. Months into his tenure, the party further split as interests collided.
The plot to remove Oshiomhole climaxed in November 2019, when the Edo chapter of the party suspended him. About three months later, a Federal High Court in Jabi, Abuja, barred him from parading himself as the national chairman of the party; a decision which the Court of Appeal affirmed in June 2020.
Oshimhole accepted the outcome and ended his run as the party’s chairman, and Victor Giadom, deputy national secretary of the party, took over as the acting national chairman before the National Working Committee (NWC) was dissolved and the Mai Mala Buni caretaker committee was appointed, also in June, 2020, to prepare the party for a national convention.
More than one year into an assignment that was supposed to end in six months, the committee is yet to conclude its assignment. The inability of the committee to call for a convention has been causing disquiet in the party; with many calling for Buni’s head. Already, there are multiple litigations which stakeholders fear may stall the process.
Experts blame lack of internal democracy
Leadership tussle “is a common phenomenon which was foisted on Nigeria’s democratic system by moneybags,” Dr Mani Ibrahim Ahmad, an academic and former governorship candidate on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Niger State, said.
“Obasanjo foisted himself as the national leader and introduced garrison democracy, appointing and removing party leaders at will, and the trend has continued,” a political scientist with the University of Jos, Dr Joseph Benjamin, told this newspaper.
A PDP stakeholder and member of the House of Representatives in Plateau State, Bitrus Kaze, blamed the crises that trail major political leaderships on lack of internal democracy and ideological base in Nigeria’s political system.
“Governors and presidents become feudal lords as major financiers, and when there is resistance by the cronies, crises will erupt. That’s the circle we have been experiencing,” he said.
