PDP,consensus candidate and its imminent failure

By Joseph Edgar….

The main opposition party has come out to state categorically that it is not looking at the possibility of pushing a consensus candidate for the 2019 elections, but would rather concentrate in providing an enabling environment where all candidates would be encouraged to canvas for votes amongst its members for ts winning ticket.

Let me be blunt. PDP has lost this election. It looks very clearly that after the effects of the mass defections and the faux paz that was the National Assembly blockage by the DSS, the APC has gone back to its drawing board to restrategise. This, in effect, will give them additional leverage apart from the one already automatically ascribed to them by the power of incumbency.

Some of us have said that this present administration would not shy away to use the powers of state to ensure indelible advantage in this contest. You can see this already unfolding with events in Benue, Akwa Ibom and now River State. So what this then means for a main opposition party desirous of an effective push against the incumbent is the major need for cohesion and discipline.

This was the case during the Jonathan putsch. The opposition all coalesced around one uniting figure and resources and human capital was pushed towards this same figure and with one push the goliath crumbled. So today, with the array of ‘’power men’’ within the PDP all angling for that one spot, you will see a major fragmentation as the after effect of the exercise, throwing up a severely weekend candidate who will now not have enough weight to throw up a befitting challenge.

Read also: Asiwaju Tinubu, What Did Buhari Promise You This Time?

As at the last count, the PDP is parading about 10 major candidates. All very strong candidates with major influence in some very powerful voting blocks. The Senate President, which today seems to be the national question has also indicated his interest to join the fray. We all know how these things work, there would be acrimony, court cases, further defections as a result of unhappiness at the resut or would be alleged impartiality of the party structure, all leading to the increased strength and cohesion of the ruling party.

This to me signposts the end of what could have been an exciting contest. If the PDP continues at this pace, lets just hand over the mantle back to the trekking President for I do not see just how they would be able to dislodge him with a candidate that would emerge from such carnage.

PDP has always been a party of jokers in my estimation. Even during their 16-year rule, they carried along with such impunity that even they themselves were not surprised that they lost power. Ever since that event, they have carried on like a circus act, unable to rise above the fray to mount a daunting challenge for power.

Even now with probable pubic sympathy, they are looking like frittering away this opportunity gifted them by the seeming incompetence of the ruling party. They have still not been able to come out with an effective structure to coalesce these public disenfranchisement into a portent force for a credible push at power. They remain the mumu of Nigerian public space.

It’s an adieu for this push.

 

 

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