Soludo As PDP’s Pain In The Neck

Charles SoludoAssistant Editor, LEON USIGBE, writes on the headache that the selection of the Professor Chukwuma Soludo as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship andidate in the 2010 Anambra State election has continued to pose for the leadership of the party.

Professor Chukwuma Soludo may be wondering now whether his adventure into politics is worth the trouble. It is not as if the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor is unaware of the concomitant consequences of venturing into the highly unpredictable territory of Nigerian politics.

But he has certainly been through a lot in his short stint both as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its controversial candidate in the 2010 Anambra State governorship election.

Even though he has experienced dirty boardroom politics as he navigated his way to the zenith of the banking industry, what he is experiencing now in his new career is enough to have a rethink about participating in politics, especially the cruel and vindictive brand practised in his home state.

In spite of the facade created about his widespread acceptability in the state, the once highly respected top banker is at the moment the subject of much mudslinging arising from his perceived usurpation of the party’s ticket. He has been endlessly maligned since he made himself available for the position and is currently battling numerous court cases targeted against his governorship ambition.

Even though nothing has been proven yet, the much determined battle to stop him has apparently shifted to his family house with the reported kidnapping of his 78-yea-old father, Pa Simeon Soludo. He was seized by unknown gun-wielding men while at dinner in his house at Isuofia Aguata Local Government Areas of Anambra State.

The state has witnessed unprecedented level of violence in this political dispensation such that the kidnapping of Pa Soludo might have been described as one of the many violent acts that occur daily which the people have seemingly learnt to live with more especially as the old man has previously suffered an armed attack.

The point is that this time, there may be a political dimension to the travails of the septuagenarian whose son has obviously been in the eye of the storm. This must be what convinced the police in the state to invite some top politicians for questioning over the incident.

The PDP expected the fallouts it is getting from the nomination process of its governorship candidate for February next year. Perhaps, what it did not bargain for is the unwavering determination of many of its itinerant governorship aspirants to scuttle the candidacy of Professor Soludo. The circumstances that led to his emergence are less clear now than they were when the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party last month assumed the responsibility of nominating the candidate as against his emergence through the primary process.

The impression let out to the public was that since the court had restrained the party from conducting the Anambra State primaries and the deadline given by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was looming and the party had to field a candidate, the NWC had no other option but to select a candidate for the election.

The problem now is that many party faithful are of the view that the primaries logjam was deliberately orchestrated by the party’s hierarchy to achieve the definite aim of producing Professor Soludo as the standard bearer.Apparently, one Probity Adibe was disappointed enough at the outcome of the ward congresses where delegates were elected to participate at the scheduled state primaries and therefore headed to an Aguata High Court to obtain a restraining injunction on the conduct of the primaries.

Faced with the prospect of not being able to meet with INEC’s deadline, the PDP had hurriedly summoned what it called Anambra State stakeholders meeting with the intention to agree on a possible candidate in the absence of the primaries.

That action now constitutes the basis of more flak against the leadership by those who believe that the meeting need not take place at all because the PDP leadership had made up its mind on the candidate even before the stakeholders meeting idea was mooted.

Those who oppose Professor Soludo are alleging that Mr. Adibe, indeed, sought and obtained the court order at the prompting of the former apex bank governor who might have worked in consonance with the party leadership since it was thought that being the favoured candidate; he stood little chance of clinching the ticket through an electoral process.

Even though the PDP rejected any suggestions of favouring Professor Soludo for the ticket, initial signs suggested that the party was desperate to have Professor Soludo as its standard bearer in the Anambra State governorship election considering the credentials of most of the other aspirants in the race and the party had, therefore, hoped that with the intimidating pedigree he paraded, the other aspirants could easily be convinced to adopt him as the consensus candidate.

After the earlier public presentation of Professor Soludo by Chief Tony Anenih, the first meeting of the 49 aspirants presided over by Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State was thought to have been tailored to endorse him as the candidate but many of the aspirants were against the move in favour of an open contest on the field in contradistinction to Professor Soludo who supported the consensus idea.

The PDP’s justification for selecting him tends to lend credence to the fears of some of the aspirants that the party had no intention of conducting the primaries in the first place.

It argued that his choice was based on the need to have a candidate with the necessary exposure and stature and it did not fail to add that it reluctantly invoked the provisions of Article 17.1 of its constitution “which recognises the powers of the National Executive Committee (NEC) exercisable by NWC as the final authority for resolving all disputes relating to the choice of candidates for the party for any elective public office in the federation.”

The NWC had argued that the choice of its ticket was arrived at “after exhaustive deliberations and wide consultations” and was informed by the need to have a candidate to unite the party faithful in the state and ensure victory. The PDP said it had done everything possible to guarantee a selection process that was “democratic, transparent and acceptable to all,” but regretted the court order that restrained the party from completing the process.

However, it was one of the aspirants, Mr. Kenneth Odidika, who first alleged that “Probity Adibe is a well known agent of Professor Soludo,” who was allegedly used by the former apex bank’s boss because he knew that he could not get the party’s ticket through an election. He said when other aspirants confronted Professor Soludo with the facts on Adibe, the candidate was unable to offer any concrete evidence to the contrary.

Like many others, Mr. Odidika has declared that he is not interested in any reconciliation and has rejected the party’s overtures because he could not align “with deliberate illegality and unruly conduct and, therefore, I reject the process and the result as currently peddled.” The aggrieved aspirants are, therefore, poised to continue to fight even if INEC goes ahead to confirm the nomination of Professor Soludo as the candidate of the PDP. This has left a sour taste in the mouth of the PDP’s hierarchy.

The allegation that Professor Soludo scuttled the primaries through the court process portends the gravest challenge to the PDP as the leadership is now hard pressed to extricate itself from suspicion of complicity. Opponents have reasons to believe that the plot might have been hatched by the leadership which had hardly been able to hide its preference for the former CBN Governor as some of the party officials are suspected to have perfected the court papers that led to the granting of the exparte order that put a halt to the primaries.

The PDP is also at a loss about how to deal with the threat posed by party chieftain and financier in Anambra State, Chief Chris Uba, who is furious about the turn of events. Uba had hoped for the emergence of one of the numerous candidates he sponsored for the primaries, especially Chief Chuma Nwafor, but his effort has, so far, come to naught.

But he has since become the arrowhead of the scheme to thwart the governorship ticket in his belief that the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) had singled him out for marginalisation by ignoring his faction not only in the selection of the candidate but also his running mate.

Uba’s camp has continued to stress its determination to press for the conclusion of the primaries through the normal process as it never believed in the selection made by the NWC.