Acting Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Bello Haliru Mohammed, said the rapid decline in the fortunes of the party is due to the abrogation of its policy of rotation and zoning in 2011.
The PDP chieftain said jettisoning this policy had severely undermined the principle of justice and equity, on which the party was founded in 1998, pointing out that the eventual electoral loss in the last presidential poll, due to widespread crises of confidence in the fold, was the sad price the party had to pay for jettisoning its policy of rotation and zoning.
Dr Bello’s disclosure was contained in a six-point presentation to the 17-member 2015 PDP Post Election Review Committee (PDP – PERC) headed by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, in Abuja.
Speaking at the session, with some members of the committee, led by former Kaduna State governor, Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, Bello, who was former Acting National Chairman of the PDP, recalled that the party’s decline actually began in 2011, when the party abandoned zoning.
According to him, the policy had hitherto been a major attraction to the party as it offered all members equity, justice and a sense of belonging.
“When the founding fathers formed the party in 1998, they established the principle of justice and equity whereby power resided with the people who could decide who became what at any point in time.
“But overtime, the party swerved away and breached the principle thereby disrupting its internal democracy. When in 2011 the party abandoned its zoning formula, the party dealt on itself a major blow because that action served the first notice that it had disconnected with the masses. So we must go back to the culture of zoning and rotation of offices,” he said.
The politician said the PDP remained the only true national party in the country with its flag in all nooks and crannies.
, pointing out that members were assured that they could always aspire to any available position as long as zoning and rotation held sway as a cardinal policy of the party.
Bello said as the party currently sought to redeem itself, something must be done to curb the practice of putting the party at the whims and mercy of moneybags and the highest bidder to the exclusion of many members.
“We must run away from a practice that leaves the party at the mercy of moneybags who, more often than not, seek to hijack the processes of the party at the detriment of promoting genuine internal democracy through which only capable, credible and popular candidates can emerge to contest elections with assurance of victory,” he said.
The PDP BoT chairman also contended that party supremacy should hold true in all affairs of the party, even as he urged that elected and appointed office holders should not be allowed to dominate party decisions while party meetings should be restricted to party offices in the states and at the centre.
He also urged that policies and manifesto of the party should guide the activities of public office holders who were either elected or appointed on the platform of the party in line with good governance and best practices.
On party funding, he advocated for a system whereby members make their statutory contributions to the party as prescribed by the party’s constitution, noting that it was a major sustainable means of getting the party to meet its obligations and responsibilities.
While thanking the committee members for the visit, Bello requested that the PDP should give more attention to elders and founding fathers of the party many of whom he observed were still in the party but were indifferent to the affairs and fortunes of the party owing to lack of patronage.
“In the recent years, many of our leaders, elders and founding fathers have been abandoned in spite of their abiding interest in the party. Some have left, some chose to remain but are either inactive, unconcerned or indifferent because nobody has bothered to look for them. This is not acceptable. If there is any time we need them for advice and counsel, it is now,” he said.
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