Why Adamu Mu’azu is not to blame for PDP’s defeat

These are not the best of times for Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) National Chairman, Adamu Mu’azu.Chieftains of the party have begun to mount pressure on him to resign following the PDP’s resounding defeat in the recently concluded general elections.

The aggrieved members, most of whom are loyalists of outgoing President, Goodluck Jonathan, have blamed Mu’azu for the party’s loss at the polls with Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayoseaccusing the chairman of working for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

However, Adamu Mu’azu should not be held responsible for the PDP’s (or Jonathan’s) defeat.

The party was defeated because it ran a campaign focused on hostility, verbal violence and debasing insults despite constantly receiving mature silence from its opponents.

The PDP could have focused on its achievements and the merits of Jonathan’s administration, instead it launched an all-out campaign of calumny against APC candidate and now President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.

This vicious campaign had at the forefront Fayose, Femi Fani-Kayode and First Lady, Patience Jonathan.

Fayose ridiculed his own mother, party members and himself all in a bid to discredit Buhari.

He accused Buhari of hiding a health condition, flew from Ekiti to Abuja to further claims that the President-elect had lied about an interview location and prophesied death to Buhari on the cover of a national daily.

Not once in his long statements or impassioned speeches did Fayose give any practical reason why Jonathan was the better choice.

Fani-Kayode also sent out long statements about how Buhari intended to Islamize Nigeria, welcome Boko Haram with open arms and still manage to legalize homosexual relations to please the Western world.

Patience Jonathan also launched attacks on Buhari with no precision and no bearing. Her major problem was with the APC slogan “Change”.

“Are we in bus stop,” “Are we conductors” “Keep ya change” was all she had in her arsenal.

She also called Buhari, a former Head of State old enough to be her father, brain-dead.

PDP chieftain, Abubakar Tsav laid the blame for the party’s woeful defeat at the polls on the doorsteps of the three warlords above.

“The party was taken over by Mrs Jonathan, Gov. Fayose, Femi Fani-Kayode among others. Imagine the First Lady inciting people to be violent during the campaigns. The opposition was focused and never left the substance to pursue the shadow,”Tsav said.

Meanwhile, Mu’azu’s response to the hate campaign was to condemn it on March 23, 2015 saying:

“If you watch my utterances personally, you will find that there is nothing I do than to be a good salesman of what I should be, for my party and for my President. I have enough to say about my President that are positive to make people adore him and love him, to vote for him. I have very little to say about the opposition.”

“Unfortunately, when the opposition goes haywire, some of our small boys in our own party also shout back. And that is why you have some of the unfortunate things. Believe me, I always give them a very strong signal that we don’t expect that. That is why it is not more than it has been. It would have gone even much worse. It is absolutely unnecessary to call somebody’s product bad product. It is better for you to sell your product and show how good or better your product is than the others.”

After calls were made for his resignation, Mu’azu spoke more openly on his thoughts about the PDP hate campaign.

“You will all recall that the National Chairman warned members of our PresidentialCampaign Org to stop the hate campaign,” he said via Twitter“My wife, Mary, encourages my son to drink and smoke Indian hemp,’’ a 66-year-old pastor, Vincent Omojeya, told an IgandoCustomary Court in Lagos State on Thursday. Omojeya, the petitioner, begged the court to dissolve his 36-year-old marriage to his wife, Mary, 58, saying that- http://goo.gl/lBjguw on Thursday, May 7.

It is therefore ironic that two of the people who dragged the PDP into the mud with their bare hands are calling for the exit of the man who tried to salvage the party’s reputation as much as he could.

It is very likely that Adamu Mu’azu will resign his position as PDP chairman before May 29.

However, it will not be because he led the party to defeat, as its members are claiming, but rather because he chose to take the honourable path.