By Abraham Agboola
I had always planned to make a representation to the reconciliation Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party in Kwara State, but my busy schedule has always prevented me from achieving that. However, the push I needed to write came from an article a member of the Reconciliation Committee by name AbdulRahman Abdullahi Kayode wrote. When I read the article in question, I was energised to write a rejoinder, but then I decided to stick to my earlier decision to write an open letter and that is what I am doing now.
While the summary of Kayode (alias Greatkay) article is that the reconciliation Committee of PDP in Kwara can achieve the objective of placating aggrieved party members by requesting for “mutual forgiveness.” If Greatkay’s opinion in any way represent the opinion of the committee to which he belongs, then I want to believe that their efforts may not achieve much results. And this is where I will like to offer my one penny advice to the Committee.
In the first instance, it’s wrong to start talking about “mutual forgiveness” and the “need to overlook the past” if we, as a party, are not prepared to review the issues that led to those grievances and also make commitments that they will not happen again. Kwara PDP Reconciliation Committee must know that there can never be true forgiveness without justice.
The call for ‘mutual forgiveness’ all through Greatkay’s article gives me a small idea that what he wrote may likely have been the message the reconciliation Committee to which he belongs have been taken to party members everywhere they have been to. If this is the case, then we are definitely approaching this reconciliation from a faulty angle.
As experienced party men, one would expect a majority of those who constitute the PDP Reconciliation Committee in Kwara to know that there can never be true forgiveness without restitution. And the only way to guarantee restitution within PDP in Kwara today is to give Internal democracy a chance and allow the will of the majority of party members to prevail. A situation where an unpopular or difficult to market candidate is foisted on party members at the expense of other more marketable candidates can never bring about forgiveness and true commitment by the larger majority of our members.
If we are serious about reconciliation in Kwara PDP, we must learn from what is happening to APC in Kwara today. The faulty primaries that produced then candidate Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, which their party Chairman, BOB, out of desperation to win election at all costs allowed to stand, is the reason for the upheaval in their party today. Our democracy has matured so well in recent time that any party that compromises internal democracy would most certainly pay the price in the form of instability, lack of commitment by party members and the general turbulence that will unsettle the party.
If we are honest with ourselves, we in PDP will know that the imposition of candidates in 2019 was the major reason for the silent revolt of the majority and the consequent lukewarm attitude exhibited towards party affairs by our members. And as long as we fail to allow the will of the majority of party members to prevail, no reconciliation would ever work. This is the truth that we’ll only ignore at our own peril.
No matter how much we preach ‘mutual forgiveness,’ if our leadership does not desist from the tradition of “mo fun e” and allow a competitive process that produces the most acceptable candidate, then what happened in 2019 is bound to repeat itself over and over again, no matter the number of reconciliation Committees we set up. The consequence of politics of imposition, which PDP played in 2019, is that disgruntled party members, instead of falling in line and queuing behind the ‘anointed candidate’ would instead become aparthetic so much that they will be disoriented from working genuinely for the victory of the party. This was the case in 2019. And if we don’t change our style in 2023, the same thing will repeat itself, God forbid.
So, my appeal to Kwara PDP reconciliation committee is that, if truly they mean well for our party and they want us to have a different result in 2023, they must reassure party faithful that their voices will count and that they will also have a say in the party to which they belong. It’s a common saying that you cannot be doing the same thing the same way and expect a different result. As long as the process that produces candidates at different levels of our party is not transparent and participatory, there will always be a large number of party members that will be disgruntled and who will therefore not see any need to commit to a party that lacks fairness and equity.
Our Reconciliation Committee needs to give a new commitment to members that things would be done differently the next time, and not to be asking them to forgive the offence of denying them the chance to have say in picking those who will fly the flag of the party at different levels, even without an indication that such a practice would not repeat itself.
Commitment to make amends. Assurance of not repeating an error. A promise of fairness to every party men and women. These are the issues that come before “mutual forgiveness.”
May God bless the PDP and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Agboola, a PDP member writes from Ekiti Local Government Area.
