The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not simply an opposition party struggling to regain power; it is an institution in terminal decline, suffering from a chronic and potentially fatal pathology rooted in its own structure. The chaos that has defined the PDP from 2013 to the present is not a string of bad luck but the inevitable result of prioritizing elite transactional politics over democratic principles. The genesis of its current agony lies in a profound, unaddressed failure of self-governance.
For over a decade, the PDP functioned as a political leviathan, controlling the entire federal apparatus. This hegemony, however, was built on sand. Lacking a foundational, clear ideology, the party’s operation was driven by the “pragmatic needs of political elites” and the relentless pursuit of resource allocation. When principles are absent, loyalty becomes purely transactional.
The Original Sin: The Tyranny of the Godfather
The most corrosive factor undermining the PDP’s stability remains the deeply entrenched sub-culture of godfatherism. This is more than a cultural quirk; it is a structural compromise. These powerful elite figures provide the financial oxygen for the party, positioning themselves as indispensable brokers. Consequently, politicians are far more accountable to these wealthy sponsors than they are to the actual constituents.
The party is, in essence, a compromised corporate vehicle for distributing patronage. This dependency renders genuine internal democracy impossible. When the allocation system fails to satisfy influential actors, crises are engineered. It is no coincidence that struggles for party control are fundamentally struggles for control over the national purse. This structural weakness guaranteed that the party would implode the moment its access to state resources was threatened.
The Great Rupture: From 2013 to Defeat
The structural sickness became acute in 2013 with the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC). A consolidated opposition provided a viable platform for dissatisfied elites to defect, making their exit maximally damaging to the ruling party.
The subsequent mass defection in November 2013—led by five sitting governors, including Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Aliyu Wamakko—was the strategic outlet for internal dissatisfaction. Their exit was not ideological; it was a high-stakes calculation for better political opportunities. This exodus shattered the PDP’s aura of invincibility, reversing the political gravity where defections used to flow into the ruling party. The result of this collapse of internal unity was catastrophic: scholarly analysis confirmed that the lack of internal democracy was a “necessary condition” for the PDP’s loss in the 2015 General Elections.
The Judicial Surrender and the 2023 Self-Sabotage
After 2015, the party descended into an internal civil war over controlling the remnants of the political machinery. The protracted Ali Modu Sheriff/Ahmed Makarfi schism demonstrated the PDP’s institutional decay. Rather than finding a political solution, the party repeatedly submitted its fundamental leadership questions to judicial review. By allowing external bodies—the courts—to define its political reality, the party proved it had lost all capacity for self-governance. This dangerous judicial dependency turned every leadership selection into a high-risk legal gamble.
This tragic pattern repeated itself leading up to the 2023 elections. The failure of the national leadership to enforce regional equity and honor zoning principles triggered the aggression of the G5 Governors (the Integrity Group). Nyesom Wike, the faction’s leader, issued warnings about “dangerous political miscalculations,” insisting the presidential ticket belonged to the South. When the party failed to deliver the expected patronage, the G5 chose active internal sabotage. This dissent translated directly into electoral defeat, with Wike’s influence directly contributing to the opposition’s victory in Rivers State. It was a stark confirmation that powerful sub-national actors prioritize regional and personal leverage over the national party’s goals.
The Terminal Haemorrhage
Today, the crisis has become endemic. The PDP is now “haemorrhaging members” at a speed that makes recovery virtually impossible. The acting leadership remains mired in disputes, maintained primarily by legal stalemates and the fear of a court-ordered implosion. When a sitting governor compares the PDP to a “faulty aircraft” and defects, leaving only one state under the party’s control in a major geopolitical zone, the writing is on the wall.
The leadership’s current strategy is one of defensive paralysis, prioritizing temporary institutional survival over the radical reform required for competitiveness. The ruling party, the APC, is actively exploiting this disarray to diminish the opposition. The failure of the PDP to fix itself risks pushing the nation toward a dangerous dominant-party system, threatening democratic accountability.
The problems of the PDP are painfully clear: they are inelastic. The elites who benefit from the current dysfunctional system—the financial sponsors and godfathers—are the very individuals who must approve reforms.
To survive, the PDP must do two things: it must implement radical transparency to curtail its financial reliance on these elites and restore institutional integrity by establishing a proactive mechanism for conflict resolution that operates independently of the judiciary. Until the PDP can demonstrate the capacity to govern itself democratically, it will continue its tragic descent from a political leviathan to a mere historical lament.
