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Nigeria: Fractured Ruling Party

By on April 26, 2010
Factions in the all powerful ruling People’s Democratic Party (P.D.P) are challenging the rule of the acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, who took over in February from President Umaru Yar’Adua, a northern Nigerian deemed too ill to rule by the National Assembly.

The would-be reformers met in Abuja, the capital to discuss overhauling the P.D.P, which dominates both branches of the country’s Parliament and the powerful state governorships. Shortly after the meeting, the dissident leaders learned they had been suspended from the party, said Ken Nnamani, former president of the Nigerian Senate. The party “is not democratic itself,” he said, adding, “We believe you can’t give what you don’t have.”
The dissidents contend that the state governors have become so powerful that they have overtaken the party machinery. A view echoed by some analysts, and Peter Lewis, director of African studies at Johns Hopkins University, to confirm that “the governors have their own network of patronage”, and act like “running independent fiefdoms”. The reformers and party establishment both wanted to preserve the party’s power, but he said the latter seemed intent on doing so through traditional means like “manipulating elections” and “increasing patronage.”
The would-be reformers have not suggested giving up. But analysts were skeptical that their movement could change the P.D.P., given its immense patronage machine and well-established electoral machine.
This outbreak of public infighting within Nigeria’s governing party this week has exposed how confused the country’s politics remain in the wake of the recent shaky transfer of power at the top. “This is simply a form of internal convulsion.

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