It has been a marathon journey for the 53-year old Gambo Lawan whose eyes are fixed on the National Chair of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).? The PDP chair is a worthwhile prize; and, the quest for it has been understandably enervating: embarking on sustained nationwide consultations with stakeholders of the PDP cannot be a tea party and has not been so for Lawan.?
Although, the venture has taxed the physical ruggedness of the Borno-born politician, yet there appears to be no let up as, according to sources close to the development, he has begun another round of nationwide consultations after rounding off with the first shuttle.?
To prove that he is ready for the strains and pains that attend the quest for and occupation of the office, Lawan has confronted, on a weekly basis, the hazards of air and road travels in his deliberate efforts to touch base with elements whose critical support he would need to actualize his chairmanship ambition.???
It is indeed understandable that the quest for the PDP chair has turned Lawan into an itinerant politician at a time like this.? The development (travels), given the humongous nature of the works that must necessarily be done to reposition and strengthen the PDP, is therefore only a dress rehearsal.
Not a few of the aspirants have failed this first test.? How many of the aspirants, especially those in their seventies, have the capacity to traverse the length and breadth of the country in consultations and in search of the critical stakeholders’ support??? This is what whoever eventually becomes the prize winner will be saddled with while in the saddle: meetings and interventions that will bring about reconciliation and promote internal democracy.
Reports have indicated that Lawan, who has been quietly working on friends and foes, partisan and neutral PDP elements, has gone very far.?? He has leveraged on his vast network to rekindle old political flames.? He has reached out to the highly and lowly placed persons in the party in the spirit of promoting collective ownership of the party leadership.?
The exercise, as gathered, has not reached its terminus because the end of the journey will be determined by the powers-that-be: the PDP leadership, acting in synch with the Presidency and the State Governors.? A decision will be reached that will bolster the selection process.?? This has been the practice within the party right from the 1999 National Convention that produced Barnabas Gemade as National Chair up to now.?
This present project cannot be different.? The decision to pigeon-hole the position and tele-guide it into the hands of a beneficiary has always found justification in the imperative to promote consensus and unity within the party particularly between its leadership and the government that it has produced at the Federal level.
But as good as this may seem for the PDP, successive national chairs of the party have not demonstrated good faith to the arrangement.? For instance, Gemade fell out with former President Olusegun Obasanjo who installed him; Audu Ogbeh and Ahmadu Ali experienced similar fate.?
As for Vincent Ogbulafor, who was brought in as National Chair by the governors under the presidency of the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, his tenure ended somewhat abruptly with the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as president due to the issue of political trust or reliance; the very brief tenure of Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo as National Chair was also due to the power politics that verges on the question of absolute loyalty.
The acting National Chair, Kawu Baraje, is politically irrelevant in the calculations.? His tenure is transitory; and to that extent, all stakeholders in the party are looking beyond him: they are contemplating the man and his personality who will drive the machinery of the party as from March, next year.? The party begins the process of electing a new leadership in February.? It is likely, according to feelers, that the process will peak in March with the emergence of the National Working Committee (NWC).
Authoritative reports have indicated that the Presidency is predisposed to a National Chair who is ready to reposition, lead and serve the party absolutely loyally and who will also extend the same gesture to the President without compromising party discipline.? This thus places a huge demand on whoever emerges after the stakeholders must have been convinced of his capacity to moderate tendentious activities of disparate elements and pull the party to a common destination of harmony and greatness.
In his on-going consultations, which have just been punctuated with the commencement of distribution of a formal letter of intention to vie for the office to party leaders, Lawan is said to have assured stakeholders of his commitment to the unity, discipline and internal democracy in the party.? Many people he engaged with, according to sources, were convinced that he would fit the bill as the next National Chair given his political pedigree.
With the possibility of the Northeast zone, to which the position has been ceded, agreeing to narrow the choice of the National Chair to Borno State for strategic political reasons, Lawan thus becomes one of the five aspirants from the state who will put at stake their chances for consideration as either a consensus candidate from the state or an elected candidate from the state through a shadow election or any other process that is considered apposite.
Whatever methods that would be adopted, prognoses point to Lawan as one who is likely to scale most, if not all of the qualification hurdles that would be placed before the aspirants such as commitment to the party and discipline (having been foundation member since 1998), experience in party administration (having been National Chair of Grassroots Democratic Movement), capacity to be loyal (which he has demonstrated in the PDP), strength to go the whole hog in touching base with party men and women from Abia to Yobe, Rivers to Zamfara? and Lagos to Benue (which with his age and physique he can do and has in fact started doing with the series of nationwide consultations presaging the emergence of the party’s choice for the coveted position).
Baba Maina wrote in from
Maiduguri