WHY PRESIDENT JONATHAN SHOULD EMPOWER PDP POLITICIANS IN STATES

Odimegwu Onwumere

Fear hangs in the air that President Goodluck Jonathan may lose the presidential election whenever it is contested this year. In some quarters, we have read that what will make this a success is because he is only using Abuja politicians of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for this onerous task, hence undermining states and grassroots politicians of that party.

Like the sages have told us that our fates are in our hands, it is essential that Jonathan does the needful in order not to lose the election; only if he wants. He has to make decisions that will affect everybody in the party so that he will come out spotless in the election rather than having to clear everything with the Abuja politicians.

In politics, likewise in other endeavours, the best ways to keep the people that you are working with or that are working with you is to empower them for effective and progress of work which you are doing with them. There are great advantages to this. However, there is a murmur that Jonathan has not been empowering the PDP in the states, but the Abuja politicians.

If this is true, Jonathan might not know how severe this is aiding deeply to his failure, because without empowering your workers therefore hoping solely on the strength of the managers, there will never be an intimate understanding of how their jobs are done. Few days ago we read about how the presidency discovered four PDP governors who were playing ‘saboteurs’, pitching their tent with an opposition political party.

A critical examination of that scenario could show that the governors were not happy with Jonathan and, there may be many of them like that who are only feigning love for Jonathan, but in their hearts, they are not happy with him. From years of experience, even in the so-called developed democracies, the different parties there host fundraising. They do this in seeing that campaigns are effectively carried, so that their aspirations could be realizable.

So, this should not be exempted where Jonathan is, which he has done. But how the grassroots, who are working for the party, are empowered, will go a long way to show commitment and mutual relationship with the presidency and the states and so forth. Without sounding immodest, Jonathan has to understand that empowering PDP politicians in the states, not only the Abuja politicians, will make them to feel a stronger sense of responsibility.

The meat of the matter is that Jonathan does not know that he is contending the presidency with a very formidable opposition this time. And this has made the ruling PDP to be in a serious mishap, especially that people around Jonathan may not be telling him the truth that there is fire on the mountain.

Imagine that from political calculations, the same Abuja politicians have cost the PDP about five governors to the opposition APC. At the state level, the story is not different owing to the drag in the December last year concluded primaries, where some PDP gubernatorial contenders felt shortchanged; therefore, they pitched their tents with other political parties.

What Jonathan should be asking himself is whether he can win elections in the North-west and South-west and North-east and North-central, South-east and South-south. The game will not be easy this time. Imagine that PDP has lost states and zones like Kano, North-west and Lagos, South-west. PDP has cluttered up by losing Kwara, Adamawa and Sokoto, Rivers State (even Bayelsa?)

Does Jonathan not know the strategy in having a good working relationship in a company? If he does not, we have to make him to understand that a good result is achieved in companies only when the director makes the employees to understand that their ideas matter so much and, not only the ideas of the minute population of managers in the company. The later represents the Abuja politicians of the PDP political party.

If the states where the PDP controls are empowered to be in charge in making and bringing up strategies on how Jonathan will win the election, it will create a positive result for effective morale. If Jonathan makes the states to understand that their ideas matter to the success of his presidential ambition, people in those state will tend towards taking a greater interest in creating a more efficient and profitable campaign that will help him.

An article titled, “Employee Empowerment: Management Giving Power to the People” admonishes the likes of Jonathan that employee empowerment can help strengthen the relationships between managers and employees… Managers are seen as coaches and professionals with a direct interest in the success of their employees as opposed to those that dictate policy and give commands. Managers learn to rely on empowered employees, and employees learn to use their managers as resources for getting jobs done.

But it is as if Jonathan is only caring for the tiny number of persons around him who think they make the policies he operates on, thereby undermining the large population at the grassroots who are earnestly working day and night in making sure that he emerges winner in the election. You do not harness only the managers with the responsibilities of decision making.

One Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in January this year reportedly made Jonathan to understand the flesh of this article: That he might lose the election so-far he reposes his whole strength on the sugar-coated voices and vows the Abuja-based politicians are making to him. In that line, it was observed that Jonathan has been undermining the skyrocketing energy of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

It is manifest that PDP will fail if it relies on Abuja politicians to win the election, because they cannot decide who wins the presidential elections. The party, therefore, must go back to the drawing board and grassroots for it to come out victorious in the 2015 elections. People are defecting in mass from PDP at the grassroots.

Jonathan should think if he is being deceived by some persons around him. He should know that he needs votes from the Sokoto Caliphate, which encompasses of Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi, and that they vote in mass. Jonathan should know that he needs votes from all the parts of the country, not only from the minute Abuja politicians, to win the election.

He should know that it is pertinent with the politics in Nigeria that once a presidential contender wins in the South-west and North-west, probably, the person has won the election. Jonathan should see beyond his rather veiled eyes and entranced head in this election.

Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Writer, Rivers State. (apoet_25@yahoo.com). Tel: 08057778358.