Frailing, Vanishing of Edo PDP — By Elempe Dele
The Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, seems to be vanishing by the day, and this was acutely evident in its recent bye-election outings held last Saturday. It has thinned down to the level it can no longer pose as a formidable opposition it was some years ago when Chief Dan Orbih was the state chairman of the party.
This was the era when PDP was very attractive. Even when the party was not able to win two successive gubernatorial elections after Mr. Lucky Igbenedion left office, it won the presidential elections conducted that period, it had House of Representative member, Senators and House of Assembly members as well.
Today, all the fortunes of the party have been blown into the air like the ashes of the dead.
“We can practically trace the misfortune of the PDP in Edo State to 2020 but that part of history will come at the appropriate time. History must be told repeatedly because we know that humans hardly learn from history no matter how contemporary it is.”
One cannot blame the exodus of members of the party on a single factor. We know that after the last gubernatorial election was won and lost, some members left the party while others stayed back hoping for a favourable outcome in the courts, which turned out not as expected. Some who actually stayed back left after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the All Progressive Congress, APC.
Another factor that has depleted the PDP is that the ruling centralised party is always a centripetal force…it attracts because a lot of members don’t want to be in the opposition. It is always difficult for members of the opposition, especially those who see politics as a profession, to continue to stand firm, to reorganize and to continue to provide formidable opposition to the ruling party at the state and central governments.
Yet another factor that has made this mass exodus possible is that members seem not to think PDP in the near future has what it takes to continue to challenge the ruling party. So why should they continue to stay under the pretence of hoping to building structures? Who will be funding their activities? Even voters don’t want to listen to parties that have no funds for their mobilization during elections.
The PDP has unfortunately been on the gradual descend since 2020, after it won(which was like it lost the election) There were deliberate crisis which came from the fight for supremacy between what was then termed Landlords and Tenants.
The Legacy PDP stood their grounds against what was popularly called Harmonization – a cunny effort to remove executives of the party without due compensation by the government. All efforts to resolve the issues proved abortive.
While the imbroglio lasted, unresolved, the party saw itself suddenly faced with the 2024 election.
The conduct of the primary and other associated events further disengaged what was left of the fragile understanding, which led to the real mass exodus of the factional members that were loyal to Chief Dan Orbih.
I cannot recall if there were determined attempt to recall those who were resigning in their tens daily and pacify them. It was a cold, “to hell with them!”
Will PDP be able to stage a come-back in Edo State in the nearest future? History will tell. As of today, the down-turn and spiralling out of power of the party is uncontrollable. Not even a world class clairvoyant can stop it.
Members are not only joining the ruling party, some actually joined the Labour Party, LP, before its recent misfortunes while others are joining the African Democratic Congress, ADC.
The PDP has no will to be resilient in Edo State, not only because it lost several of these elections, but partly because it was handed over to people who knows nothing about building political parties.
This is one of the reasons why PDP has almost totally lost its political relevance in Edo State.
