If I Were PDP Leaders

These are tough times indeed for the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria's ruling party. It has just lost its over-invested gambit to change the country's constitution so that the president and all its governors may continue in office, after their official two-term tenure expires in 2007.
The senate, which they dominate, killed the bill Tuesday 16 May. It was a deadly blow to both the president and the party.

Officially, they have both conceded defeat and accepted the verdict. They indeed proclaim it as a victory for democracy. Thanks, guys!

Now, unofficially, the signals from the party are worrisome. There is undisguised bitterness and residual hubris in the utterances of their spokespersons. How they expect the senate to cherry-pick the ill-conceived bill is unclear. Built around the tenure-elongation agenda, the bill was full of guises and disguises. It was deliberately booby-trapped to ensure that any attempt to pass a variant of its more noble and valuable provisions, without the "third term" intention, would fail. Clever! Yes, by half. For example, both the Niger Delta question and South East's state-creation request can be settled under extant constitutional provisions. And they will now be done.

That the bill was dead on arrival was so clear. Nigerians were against it. It was immoral and unjust. It was opposed worldwide as a bad example for other African countries. Nigeria is a regional leader, not a banana republic! And, to be fair, the party knows the truth. Just that the bruised ego of its leaders stands in the way of purgatory and penitence, for now. A good tap, however, is the president's idea or directive for intra-party reconciliation after this ugly fiasco. Better.

As part of this rebirth, if I were the leaders of PDP, I would dissolve the executives and call for fresh congresses nationwide. The last re-registration exercise alienated too many loyalists. And the current saga oozed from the leaders' actions. It is time to start afresh. There is price to pay. Real leaders take responsibility. Including biting the bullet. No buck-passing. No cowardice.

If I were the key officers, we would resign to save the party utter demolition at the 2007 polls. The death of the Third Term agenda was a vote of no confidence. Why pretend?