The Sen Ahmed Makarfi-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last week received the Prof Jerry Gana-led Strategy Review and Inter-party Affairs Committee, report amidst optimism of better days ahead of 2019. But does the hope of the party really lie on the recommendations of the committee? Leadership reports.

Last week the former ruling party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was giddy with hope. The party faithful were excited over the submission of the Prof Jerry Gana-led Strategy Review and Inter-party Affairs committee report. The committee, which was inaugurated in November, last year, have the mandate.

The mandate of the team was to, among things, come up with strategies on how to return to power at the center in 2019 and seek out possible alliances or merger with other political parties.

And so last Wednesday, the over 100-member committee submitted its report, in a way that sought to sign post the party’s preparedness to do battle for 2019. The gathering, in Abuja, attracted some of the founding fathers and founding members, chief of which is former Minister of Finance, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, who had distanced himself from the party since 2011.

A key founding member of the party and elder statesman, Ciroma, it was that warned against the alteration of the zoning formular back in 2011 which saw Dr Goodluck Jonathan, continue in office as president after the death of his boss, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. For many watchers, the party never recovered from that alteration which culminated in its loss in 2015.

However, other founding members present at event were businessman, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, former Jigawa State governor, Mallam Sule Lamido and Ambassador Aminu Wali. On the roll call too were  governors, an array of former governors, former ministers, Board of Trustee (BoT) members and state party chairmen.

If the attendance gave an impression of a resurgence, the report gave party members some sense of hope of better days ahead. For months the party had wallowed in a leadership crisis, which resulted in the loss of two governorship elections, botched national convention, loss of focus as an opposition party and defections based on the claims of division within the party’s ranks. Sen Ali Modu Sheriff, had given the Makarfi led PDP and all the organs lining behind him, a tough battle, which shock the very foundations of the party at some point.

As such the crisis had raised a debate whether or not to jettison the PDP brand for a new platform. However, one of the striking disclosures by the Gana report, in its recommendation foreclosed that option. It noted that while they had began discussions with other political parties, the move to change the name of the party as a result of a merger was not the way to go.

Gana, who revealed this at the submission of the inter-party strategy committee’s final report to the PDP leadership, announced that the initial contacts made by the committee to other parties “have yielded positive responses from seven people-focused and social democratic parties.”

He however said the meeting between the PDP National Caretaker Committee and leaders and selected delegates of the seven parties has “nothing to do with the rumoured mega party, but a separate and highly principled initiative of the PDP.”

He added “Our desire is to have all genuine democrats and friends of the people to flow together and provide a fresh and trustworthy leadership to promote and ensure a people-friendly process of national development.”

On their strategic options for winning elections under the current INEC, he noted “These are modern and highly effective. We urge strict confidentiality of the full and separate Report of that Syndicate to be submitted to you as a supplement to the Final Report.”

On governance he said “We are strongly of the view that Governments elected on the platform of the PDP must govern so excellently as to produce genuine development to uplift the lives of millions of our people.

“The security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of Government”, so declares the Nigerian Constitution. 9. The Committee seriously considered how best to put in place a robust mechanism of inter-Party relations, so as to encourage the coming together of all genuine and people-oriented democrats on the basis of shared principles and core programmes of national transformation.