One person that would be conspicuously missing at today’s national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP whether in Abuja or Port-Harcourt would be Chief Olisa Metuh, the outgoing National Publicity Secretary of the PDP.
On Thursday, Metuh’s physical frailty seemed to compound his seeming political pains when he vomited twice in court. Today’s convention, if it holds, would be the first one that Metuh would be missing from or not involved in an active role.
The convention would also draw a curtain to Chief Metuh’s ascendancy in the party. Undoubtedly the longest serving member of the outgoing National Executive Committee, NEC, Metuh had been an ex-officio member, Youth Leader, National Vice-Chairman Southeast and lately, the National Publicity Secretary.
The rumour among some in the inner circle of the party until recently, was that Metuh was destined for the milk and honey position of National Organising Secretary of the party. As National Organising Secretary, foes and friends had claimed that Metuh was set to use the office to make billions of naira. It is no secret among top PDP members that the office of National Organising Secretary is about the juiciest office you can get at the national secretariat given the fact that it is the office that handles the internal primaries of the party from state House of Assembly to presidency.
Indeed, few months ago before his trial for allegedly receiving N400 million to run the affairs of his office from the office of the NSA, Metuh’s star and stature in the party was almost unassailable; it was especially so after the loss of the General Election when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had stepped out. Metuh was among the first to correctly project that the next direction of the PDP presidential candidate of the party would be towards the Northeast; but certainly not Ali Modu Sheriff.
He actually had his plans well laid out; and perhaps in cahoots with his political soul-mate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, the highest political office holder in the PDP, they had envisioned how the PDP could win back power in 2019. Those in the know also would tell you that the Southeast contributed handsomely to the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and that; mainly because President Goodluck Jonathan despite shelling out N400 million to the PDP through Metuh left the outgoing National Publicity Secretary out of his re-election plans.
In 2011, Metuh was covertly and openly involved in the Jonathan campaign. However, in 2015, Dr. Jonathan by some accounts because of some differences excluded Metuh and instead appointed Mr. Peter Obi to coordinate his election in the Southeast. It was no surprise that despite the fact that Jonathan swept the elections in the Southeast in 2015, the margin of victory, or as APC activists would say, the rigged votes that the PDP produced in 2011 when Metuh led operations were largely absent.
Indeed, as Governor Kassim Shetima once acknowledged in an interview with this correspondent, the Southeast played a significant role in the election of President Buhari. He noted that if the PDP had in 2015 returned the kind of votes that it did for Jonathan in 2011, that the PDP would have won the election given that the difference in votes between Muhammadu Buhari and Jonathan from the rest of the country could have been erased in the Southeast.
With the political pathway clear before him, Metuh upon pressures from family and friends withdrew himself from seeking another office in the PDP NEC. The pressure undoubtedly flowed from Metuh’s trial for allegedly receiving the N400 million alleged to be from government coffers to run the party’s publicity machine. Apparently they have had enough. However, it is not as if the political field did not bring rewards. It also brought immense power that saw Metuh confront the high and haughty. Some would remember how Metuh as National Vice-Chairman of the party nearly came to fisticuffs with Chief Chris Uba, the powerful godfather of the PDP at the Owerri Airport in December 2010.
Metuh’s step aside from the PDP NEC would inevitably be applauded by some, especially Chief Uba with whom he has been in perennial conflict over control of the PDP in Anambra. It would, however, leave those aligned to him in the state bereft as orphans.
Ogbemudia As Trouble Shooter
That the All Progressives Congress, APC in Edo State is troubled by the governorship succession battle would be understating the facts. The deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu and most of the aspirants for the party’s governorship ticket are hardly on talking terms with the outgoing governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who they believe is determined to foist Godwin Obaseki as his successor. But the governor and his associates claim the governor has a right to support someone.
However, the trouble in the party has led to some stakeholders calling on Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia to intervene. But Ogbemudia according to sources has so far put aside the entreaties. The gist is that the revered Ogbemudia is not sure that either Oshiomhole or his traducers would agree to peace.
This article was written by Emmanuel Aziken a political editor