Obiora Obasi is a solutionist writer and author of the fast-selling book, This Way Nigeria. He is a mediator, a community leader, development worker, student of history and keen follower of local and international politics.

Amongst other insightful pieces Obiora has shared with the public is “Birth of a new Nigeria: moving from murmur, to complaint, to action”, an educative article that enjoins Nigerians to desist from the habit of incessant mumurs to the character of deliberate and intentional actions towards actualizing a better Nigeria.

Today, However, he shares with us,  an article that he tagged “PDP RESURGENCE AND SENATOR EKWEREMADU’S SACRIFICES.”

This work of art, gainfully explained the former situation of one of the Apex political parties in Nigeria, The people’s Democratic Party (PDP), their days of gloom and scorn. Days when the men she had banked and hoped on deserted without looking back, days when they “Jumped ship” without thinking twice.

Nonetheless, Just like the Mythical Phoenix, it has risen from the ashes, leaving behind, her days of shame and dishonor from both Foes and friends alike.

Now, he said, “things are beginning to look up for PDP”. Now are the days of Glory, Value and worth for PDP.

Through the works and unwavering efforts of the tireless and relentless chieftains, members and men of worth in the party, Like the highly Esteemed Former Deputy president of the Senate, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu.

It was in an APC dominated parliament, that, Sen. Ekweremadu in his Tenacity, retained his position as Deputy President of the Senate.

“Senator Ike Ekweremadu harvested from APC’s terribly grandiose overestimation of its abilities.“, was Obiora’s way of defining the strength, the doggedness and the resilience, exhuded by the distinguished Senator.

The piece thus reads :

“Things are looking up for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, at the moment, and it has been a long time in coming. There are now strong prospects of the party returning to Alagbaka House in Ondo on the heels of its recent exploits on the way to Osadebe House in Edo. Huge gains when this happens.

Gone are the days when the party was a pariah entity, an orphan in a bankrupt neighborhood. A time when even a mention of the party drew scornful looks from friends and adversaries.

The party had just lost its very prized possession: the presidency, and by extension the opportunity to amend its obvious weaknesses. It was a time when the fleet commanders jumped ship without qualms.

The party was beaten black and blue, bruised, wounded and left for dead. Boxing pundits would remember the night of May 25, 1965 when Muhammed Ali, against all odds, sent “Big Bear”

Sonny Liston to the canvass with the so-called ‘phantom punch.’ As Liston sprawled on the canvas dazed, Ali towered over him and kept taunting, “Get up and fight, sucker!”

The 2015 general elections were such glorious moments for the All Progressives Party, APC, having won the presidency, majority in the National Assembly and majority of the gubernatorial elections.
Such huge celebrations and parties they had!

First was the Presidential inauguration which was like PDP’s funeral procession, and next was the National Assembly inauguration which was to signal the party’s final burial.

Then something auspicious happened. Senator Ike Ekweremadu harvested from APC’s terribly grandiose overestimation of its abilities.

In the midst of their celebrations the APC left one of its flanks open, and like Nero that fiddled while Rome burned, the party hierarchy and its members to be sworn-in as senators, were at the International Conference Centre Abuja on June 9, 2015, the day of inauguration of the 8th Senate, doing God-knows-what, while PDP’s hugely depleted contingent to the National Assembly and a dissenting bloc of the ruling APC in the senate elected themselves into principal offices.

As Brutus would say to Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune” (Act-IV, Scene-III). By the time APC realized itself Senator Bukola Saraki had become the senate president, while Senator Ike Ekweremadu, arrowhead of the opposition party, PDP, had retained his position as deputy president of senate in an APC-dominated parliament!

That event left APC disoriented and concussed, but when it came to, it was in equal measure incensed and livid with rage.

It swore not to allow the ‘Saraki-Ekweremadu travesty’ stand, for Ekweremadu’s presence at the table would sabotage their badly conceived totalitarian mission.  For Saraki, the party was at first in quandary on how best to put him in his place, but for Ekweremadu APC declared war and placed bounty on his head.

From then onwards it was travails galore for the senator:.

1.Attempt was made on his life on the streets of Abuja

2.He was charged to court along with Saraki for alleged forgery of Senate Standing Rule, a case that was later withdrawn when the antagonist realized its folly

3.There was a failed attempt to plant evidence on him when the police forced their way into his official guest house in Abuja ostensibly in search of cache of arms

4.The now disused and disgraced Okoi Obono-Obla under the cover of the Special Investigation Panel on the Recovery of Public Property was let loose on the senator. The Panel, acting on a worthless petition by an equally disgraced former Chief Judge of Enugu State dragged the senator before the Federal High Court on May 11, 2018, on allegations of false declaration of assets.

5.DSS operatives on 24th July 2018 held him hostage in his house and laid siege on the National Assembly to prevent him from presiding over defection of some APC senators to PDP, the Senate president, Saraki, having been invited the same day to IGP office for questioning regarding his alleged connection with one of the criminals that robbed a bank in Offa.

6.Not long after the above the EFCC focused all its energy on the senator and accused him of innumerable crimes none of which has been proved till date

7.APC has employed every known device in the books to assassinate the character of the senator, with constant stream of frivolous allegations.

When all these attempts failed to yield results, APC resorted to using emotional blackmail to woo Senator Ekweremadu to join their fold. At the height of the senator’s persecution, a colleague in the red chambers and spokesperson of the Senate Unity Forum, Senator Kabir Marafa, said “Let me use the opportunity to call on my leader and my boss, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, to please defect to the APC and that will seal the whole thing and there will never be a problem.”

Luckily for the PDP, Senator Ekweremadu called the bluff of the APC and has waltzed through their shenanigans, ensuring that PDP kept a leg in the door when it mattered most. With passage of time, APC has begun to unravel and has opened new opportunities for the PDP to gain significant grounds in winning back the people’s confidence.

For taking the bullet for the PDP, the party, if it should be true to itself, owes Senator Ekweremadu a mound of gratitude for its speedy resurgence. Of course, the senator has countless times praised the PDP for being a big part of his success story. And at its most critical, dying moments the senator stepped up and demonstrated this gratitude. I once heard tale of a corpse being taken to the morgue when it suddenly twitched, sneezed and opened its eyes. That was exactly what happened to PDP on the floor of the Senate on that fateful day. Let nobody deceive himself or herself, the campaign of attrition and the scorched-earth policy leading to APC’s victory at the 2015 general elections meant that the party was determined to run PDP aground or out of town or both, after consolidating its hold on the reins of power.

It is possible that the party could still have recovered after APC’s one-way onslaught, but it certainly couldn’t have been anything less than 12 to 16 years. That the PDP was able to put up a respectable challenge to the presidency in 2019, and is now reclaiming lost territories, could be linked in large part to the affairs of June 9, 2015 at the floor of the senate. This was the biggest moment in the revival of PDP, much against APC’s calculations.

Now that the PDP has got back its mojo, it is important that it doesn’t forget little favours, lest it tows its old path of self-damnation“.