Of all the factors that brought the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) down from its enviable height as a ruling party in 2015, the most talked about was impunity and brazen disregard for internal democracy. PDP had grown to become a behemoth. There was also an air of invincibility around it, which made many people to believe that it would be difficult for any political party to knock it off the country’s leadership. However, the spirit of unity fled from its fold when its leaders became power-drunk and enthroned a regime of abuses that disrespected members’ right to vote and be voted for. Many of its leaders abused their power. They disregarded the party’s internal processes.
They imposed candidates on the party and in the process told members that their votes did not count. Those who became tired of being ignored for calling for respect of democratic norms within the party made their exit. The outcome was the failure of the party to retain power after 16 years at the top,
The party’s post-2015 general election leaders, however, believed that PDP could be salvaged. I recall that the PDP leadership constituted a review committee, led by Sen. Ike Ekweremadu. Its assignment was to review the party’s outing in the 2015 general election and proffer a road map to the future. Submitting its report on September 30, 2015, Ekweremadu said: “We have made extensive recommendations, the core of which is to end impunity, uphold justice, entrench internal democracy, enhance party administration, promote transparency and accountability and return the party to its true owners, the people, in accordance with our party slogan and founding principles.”
National chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, had, following the report, made several public submissions about the readiness of the party to truncate the regime of impunity that almost killed it and return the party to the people, where votes would count and the people would become the actual power base. Further to this, national organizing secretary of the party, Col. Austin Akobundu, while welcoming aspirants for the Anambra governorship election slated for November 6, 2021, to Wadata House, Abuja, as they purchased the party’s nomination and expression of interest forms, declared that he would ensure a very transparent, free and fair electoral process in the run-up to the election in Anambra State.
These assurances must have created the momentous movement in Anambra State, which has positioned PDP as the party to beat in the November election. This has come with massive mobilization of members and a membership drive that has seen an influx of new members. For this, the ruling party in the state is jittery. Somehow, the national and state leadership of the party in Anambra has got something right. Power has returned to the people and they are ready to express it as they like.
Then, Haruna Manu happened. Said to be the Deputy Governor of Taraba State. He was trusted with the task of overseeing the successful conduct of ward congresses of the PDP in Anambra, which held last Friday. Leadership of the party must have found him worthy in character to have entrusted him with such high responsibility that is part of the process of making PDP to take over leadership of the state. Many people believe that to be appointed to oversee such a very crucial link in the chain that leads to the governorship election is an attestation of confidence that the appointee would virtuously represent the vision of the party’s leadership in delivering a transparent, free and fair election, which would ultimately announce the return of power to the people.
In this regard, the public feeling in Anambra was that the ward congress committee for the election of the three-man ad hoc delegates, from the party’s national headquarters, led by Manu, would dutifully respect and uphold the will and wish of party members as expressed on the field and captured by the returning officers. No one expected any foul play. All those who stood out behind their preferred ad hoc delegate candidates, did so with firm belief in the tenets of free and fair elections. They expected their votes to count. They did not envisage that anyone would tamper with their votes. I guess the assurances that their votes would count encouraged them to turn out in large numbers. But then, they had a Deputy Governor waiting to unleash his character. He bared his fangs and made nonsense of every action of the party’s leadership to put an end to impunity in the party.
What did he do? He was accused of absconding to Enugu State with results sheets for the ward congresses held in Anambra State. He absconded to Enugu with the results of the ward congress at a time when there was no threat to his security or those of other electoral officers or of the state in general. His reason for running to Enugu with the result was deeply suspect. Some accuse him running away to doctor the results for one of the aspirants whose name had become synonymous with everything fraudulent about elections. Unfortunately for him, most of the actual results had been copied before he fled to collate them in Enugu.
Manu did not mind that he was betraying trust not just of PDP voters in Anambra but also of the leadership of his party. He did not mind that he was destroying PDP in Anambra State. He did not mind that his antics would be exposed. He did not mind that he was bringing a bad name unto himself. He probably was looking at the lucre before him, no matter how filthy. Singlehandedly, he brought opprobrium to PDP and, especially, to Secondus and Akobundu who had severally and publicly vowed to make the party’s electoral process transparent and respectful of the wish of the voters.
I took pity on Manu’s family when I read a message that had gone viral on a WhatsApp group linked to the PDP leadership, which was titled “Anambra Election and PDP.”
It reads: “The national electoral committee members, headed by Deputy Governor of Taraba State, Mr. Haruna Manu, today June 12, 2021, at 2:00pm in Awka, Anambra State, absconded with the results from various wards submitted to them. The results, which await further recording into original sheets, (is) a job which is exclusively reserved for the electoral officers to do, as contained in the PDP constitution.
“This very recklessness to twist and manipulate the PDP constitution is damn unusual and an illegitimate diversion. This should not be allowed to stay. This is much unheard of in the history of PDP… (That) PDP NWC should complete the process, which they started in Enugu. How can you conduct an election in Anambra State and collate same election result in Enugu? Is this how the party has begun to degenerate?”
The message, which was signed by Bod’ Oriade, further read: “Please, somebody should stop Mr. Manu before he destroys Anambra PDP… because I was there. I saw really well in Anambra State yesterday during this last congress where people lined up to elect their delegates towards the upcoming gubernatorial primary. The people spoke. The grassroots decided. This latest manipulation as being perpetrated by Manu and his fellow money-mongers will only continue to bring shame and destruction to PDP. People left their various homes to serve PDP… only for Manu and his incompetent jobbers to derail an already acclaimed peaceful process. It is only normal and proper that the collation process be allowed to complete. If not, with very glaring fraud, PDP is gone in Nigeria because people will continue to talk about this. Let this not happen.”
Is Manu working for PDP or for other external influences?