The Northern front.

         “Do not try to fight a lion if you are not one yourself.” African proverb.

If any evidence is needed to prove that the fate of the PDP  and the outcome of the 2015 elections will be decided in the North, it will be found in the frenzy of activities in involving the Presidency and Northerners in the last two weeks. First, the leading Northerner in the administration, Vice President Namadi Sambo spent the Christmas break in intense consultations with the rump of PDP North, where massive bleeding is occurring. During a carefully – choreographed three days, delegates particularly from States where Governors have defected to the opposition APC were ushered-in to pay allegiance and reaffirm loyalties to the PDP. They read prepared communiqués affirming support for President Jonathan and his administration, and stated their intentions to stay with the party. While the Vice President was engaged with damage control in many parts of the North, the State Governor was involved in an intensive tour of the southern part Kaduna State, the area which, more than any in the entire nation, had given the PDP its most solid and loyal support since 1999. It also happens to be the most neglected by federal and the state governments, which explains why there is so much restiveness and discontent in the area.

Disgruntled PDP members chose that same moment when the Vice President was in town attempting to stem the tide, to defect in their hundreds. Most came from his own Local Government Area, and their leaders hinted that many more are on their way out. If the state governor had made any impact in his blistering tour of palaces, it will take time to show. The word around is that even before the demise of late Governor Yakowa, southern Kaduna communities had drawn the line with a PDP that routinely secured maximum support and failed to deliver even the most minimal reward for the community's loyalty. It will take a lot more than a few visits and token appointments to convince southern Kaduna people that their fate is irrevocably tied to the fate of the PDP.

The challenges the PDP faces in Kaduna is replicated in most parts of the North. Defecting PDP governors have proved that they control their state legislators and party machinery. They defected with the lock and stock of the PDP, leaving behind a bit of the barrel which is now being scrambled for by former lackeys or errand boys of defected governors or chieftains who had to keep their heads down in a system that gave governors everything. The PDP is feeling the heat in all parts of the North. In former ANPP states, its formerly emasculated condition is being made more uncomfortable by further defections triggered by a resurgent opposition, and the brighter prospects of electoral success. In states where its governors are still in place, PDP members have found a new way of reminding them that they have been neglected or ignored. Defections or threats of defections are now popular ways of annoying governors and Abuja. The PDP leadership tries to put a brave
face on all this, in most instances dismissing defections as fiction or, where it admits they occur, celebrating exists of defectors as a relief to the party.

Late last week, President Jonathan lent a hefty hand in stemming the damage when he hosted a large delegation from the North West PDP led by a Minister he had sacked, Dr Halliru Mohammed. Three governors (and a deputy who refused to defect with his governor in Sokoto) were in the delegation. With an eye to the North, President Jonathan used the occasion to launder the image of an administration which he admits is being seen as largely anti-North. Seemingly hurt by accusations that he does not want to develop the North, he made the case that he had established three new universities in the North and had initiated the almajirci education system. He is working on desert encroachment, developing agriculture and fighting insecurity in the North-East. So how can anyone accuse him of being anti-North?

Governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema said the President should be believed. He told reporters after the meeting. “The President has told you he is not anti-North. From what he said, I believe him. You take a man by his words and he said he is not anti-North. So who are you to say he is anti-North?” If there had been a stage during the meeting when the media was not privy to the mutual back–patting, it is conceivable that one or two members of the delegation would have drawn attention to the massive challenges which the PDP faces in the North. They may also have drawn attention to the need to deploy fresh resources to stem the tide of losses. These resources will target reinforcing established sources of goodwill and influence in the region, increased spending profile to improve public perception and targeted resistance to the spreading influence of the APC. Northern PDP governers must be feeling like an endangered specie, and it is still not certain that one or two more will not defect, or have their entire army defect without them.

While the PDP battles to prevent a near total rout in the North, the party most likely to benefit from its travails, the APC, is also having to fight its own battles. What appears a God-sent opportunity in the self-inflicted fragmentation and meltdown of the PDP is giving the new, improve opposition a major headache. It is having to deal with potentially damaging quarrels in states where defected PDP governors have now become landlords in APC, and former legacy party chieftains, many with scars to show from bruising and lost battles with the PDP governors are being asked to yield grounds to them. The party’s mediation mechanism is slow and weak, and the problems get worse by the day. In states which do not suffer from the wholesale re-invention of the APC after the image of defected governors, jockeying for party places and clashing ambitions are challenging the party’s leadership to resolve  difficult local or deeply-rooted disputes.

The party is having to answer uncomfortable questions over its identity and vision with a huge influx of PDP defectors. It still has to conduct registration, establish structures and harmonise members from many party backgrounds into one. It will be challenged in the manner it handles ambitions of members, including many  who are newly-relocated just for the purpose. The party will worry over damage that may occur if former legacy chieftains are not appropriately accommodated in a new arrangement which subordinates them to former political foes. These chieftains in turn will have to make difficult choices between adapting to narrower space, or gambling with defections. If they do defect to the PDP, they are likely to be asked to join a long queue from the rear, along with their baggage of grievances. If they stay, they will first have to be stripped of all influences, so that former PDP governors will feel comfortable with them.

Much of the damage which the PDP suffers is coming from the North, and will be largely confined to the region. It ought to have written off the South-West as a no-go area. The East will pose a challenge, and the PDP will fight a three-way battle involving APGA and APC in the region. The South-South may ultimately be its only stronghold, but even here, it may suffer serious setbacks if the APC is able to puncture the shield erected around communities built with ethno-religious blocks. Without Lagos and most of the South West, the PDP will have to hunt for difficult game in a largely hostile North. This is the region with two-thirds of the voting population, and it is elementary knowledge that a Presidential candidate who loses Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Borno, Sokoto, Oyo and Anambra cannot win. Right now, none of these are in PDP’s hands.

Victory is by no means certain for the APC either, even with its wider spread and large voter population bases. Its chances will be radically improved if it devises strong mechanisms for resolving existing disputes, and establishing firm foundations for intra-party democracy. The North will be turned inside-out as many of its prominent leaders and politicians attempt to rally it around a solid anti-Jonathan position. This will be very difficult task, as the traditional faultlines in the plural nature of the North will be manipulated by pro-Jonathan forces as well. The entire North may be re-made by the manoeuvres towards 2015. Either the region will emerge more united because all its citizens have suffered equally under the PDP, and have voted substantially for one party, or it will be split by the most damaging strategies that will succeed in polarizing its communities along partisan, ethnic and religious lines. The North could gain a lot, or lose it all, depending on how it uses its strength as the decider in Nigerian elections.