Wike, PDP, and That Dream of a 60-Year Reign
Jerry Adesewo, Abuja
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) once strode across Nigeria’s political landscape like a colossus, its leaders so confident in their dominance that they openly boasted of ruling for sixty uninterrupted years.
The year was 2015. From the then first lady, Patience Jonathan, to the former PDP Chairman, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, Ibrahim Babangida, and other top party leaders, all toasted to this grand vision in Abuja’s finest banquet halls, their champagne flutes clinking to the rhythm of invincibility.
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Fast forward over a decade later, and that same party now resembles a crumbling edifice, its foundations cracked by internal strife and its grand ambitions reduced to bitter punchlines.
The Unraveling of a Dynasty
The PDP’s dream of a sixty-year reign was always more farce than prophecy. Conceived in an era when the party controlled everything from Aso Rock to local council seats, the boast reflected not just confidence but hubris—the kind that precedes every great political downfall.
For sixteen years, the party ruled Nigeria, leaving behind a peculiar legacy: highways that led nowhere, hospitals without doctors, and an education system that produced graduates with certificates but no skills. Abuja, the nation’s capital, became a microcosm of this decay—a city of contrasts where government officials drove past potholes in bulletproof SUVs, unfazed by the irony.
Then came 2015, and the unthinkable happened: the PDP lost. Not just lost, but was routed, humiliated, reduced to a shadow of its former self. The party that once dictated Nigeria’s political tempo found itself stumbling in the wilderness, its leaders squabbling over blame while the country moved on.
Is Wike the Problem of PDP?
Nyesom Wike was never one for nostalgia. As Rivers State governor, he governed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer—building roads, schools, and bridges with the urgency of a man who knew political capital was fleeting. When his party lost the presidency, Wike did what any shrewd politician would: he adapted.
Today, as FCT Minister, he is the face of an APC government’s infrastructure push, a role that has turned him into the ultimate political Rorschach test. To the PDP, he is a Judas, a turncoat who abandoned the family at its lowest moment. To the APC, he is proof that competence trumps partisanship. And to the average Nigerian? Just another reminder that in politics, loyalty is often just ambition in disguise.
Under Wike, Abuja is undergoing a facelift—roads are being repaired, illegal structures demolished, and streetlights installed where darkness once reigned. The irony is not lost on anyone: a PDP stalwart is now the one delivering the “dividends of democracy” under an APC administration.
So, Minister Wike is not the problem of PDP but a symptom of it.
The PDP’s Existential Crisis
Meanwhile, the PDP is a party in freefall. Its leadership tussles have become a spectator sport, its once-mighty political machine now sputtering like a poorly maintained generator. It’s headquarters has become abandoned now being threatened with revocation. It’s governors are one-after-the-other, crossing the carpet from PDP to APC. The very last being the governor of Akwa Ibom State. The dream of a sixty-year rule is dead, buried under the weight of its own arrogance.
When asked about Wike’s defection in all but name, PDP leaders respond with the kind of outrage that only the truly powerless can muster. “He has betrayed the party!” they cry, as if betrayal isn’t the oldest tradition in Nigerian politics.
Wike, ever the pragmatist, shrugs off the criticism. “I am serving Nigeria,” he says, a line that sounds noble until you remember that Nigerian politicians only remember their patriotism when it suits them.
The Punchline
The joke, of course, is on the PDP. A party that once believed it was destined to rule forever is now watching one of its own thrive in the very government that displaced it. Wike’s success is a mirror held up to the PDP’s failures—proof that governance, not grand slogans, is what truly endures.
As for the sixty-year dream? It lies in ruins, another casualty of Nigeria’s ruthless political reality. And standing atop the rubble, hard hat in hand, is Wike—the man who stopped waiting for the PDP’s revival and decided to build something new instead.
And So What?
In Nigerian politics, there are no permanent allegiances, only permanent interests. The PDP’s mistake was believing its own myth. Wike’s genius was realizing that in this game, the only rule that matters is survival.
And survive he has—while the house of PDP collapses around him.
Wike, PDP, and That Dream of a 60-Year Reign