Once revered as Africa’s largest political party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is now a shadow of its former self, a crumbling relic battling irrelevance. Founded on the promise of unity and democratic ideals, the PDP once boasted of ruling Nigeria for 60 uninterrupted years. But barely a decade after losing power, the party is in disarray, and its collapse is no longer a distant possibility, it is unfolding before our eyes.
The most telling sign of this decline is the growing number of defections by governors elected on the PDP platform. These are not fringe politicians or disgruntled party agents; they are high-ranking, democratically elected leaders abandoning what they see as a sinking ship. And they are doing so not out of disloyalty but out of survival instinct.
The unraveling of the PDP began in 2015 with the internal sabotage of President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid. Rather than rallying behind their candidate, powerful northern elements within the party, led by then-national chairman Adamu Mu’azu, quietly worked against him. Their allegiance shifted to the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC), seeking personal gain at the expense of party loyalty. That betrayal not only cost the PDP the presidency but also fractured its fragile coalition along ethnic and regional lines.
The 2023 general elections were the final opportunity for redemption but the PDP botched it spectacularly. Against the backdrop of two consecutive terms of northern presidency, the South’s call for power rotation was both logical and necessary. Yet the party’s northern establishment hijacked the process once again, pushing through the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar. The primaries, dominated by figures like Bukola Saraki and Aminu Tambuwal, alienated the South and triggered deep resentment among key stakeholders. Atiku, having secured the ticket, failed to unite even his northern base, as many regional power brokers quietly shifted their support to the APC’s Bola Tinubu.
Worse still, the internal rebellion that followed, led by Nyesom Wike and the now-famous G-5 governors, exposed the PDP’s glaring lack of discipline, unity, and leadership. Today, the party is effectively rudderless, steered by an acting chairman, Umar Damagun, who is widely perceived as a placeholder. The PDP, once a vehicle for national integration, has become a battleground for ego, ethnic supremacy, and personal ambition.
The hemorrhaging of PDP governors is not an isolated phenomenon; it is symptomatic of a deeper institutional failure. These governors, who once carried the party’s banner with pride, can no longer justify remaining in a platform that offers neither structure nor strategy. They are abandoning ship not because they want to but because the party has left them no choice.
Political parties are vehicles for achieving power, and when a party repeatedly fails to deliver results, inspire confidence, or maintain internal cohesion, defections become inevitable. No politician wants to remain in a house collapsing under the weight of its contradictions. In this game of survival, staying loyal to a party that cannot offer a viable future is not courage, it is political suicide.
The PDP’s implosion should serve as a case study in how not to manage power. From arrogant dominance to spectacular self-destruction, its trajectory reminds us that no party is too big to fail. For now, what remains of the PDP is a fragmented organization, grappling with identity loss and hemorrhaging credibility. Without urgent reinvention and honest introspection, the party may well go down in history, not as Africa’s largest political movement, but as Nigeria’s most tragic political failure.
And when even the governors start to jump, you can be sure: the ship is already under water.
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