In what could prove to be the most significant political event since the return of electoral democracy in 1999, a powerful faction has broken away from Nigeria's ruling party.
On Saturday, the slow-burning crisis within Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) burst out into the open.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, together with seven sitting state governors and a number of other senior party figures, stormed out of the party's national convention and announced the formation of a rival PDP. The dissident PDP leaders object to alleged mismanagement by President Goodluck Jonathan, his intention to stand again in 2015, and party chairman Bamanga Tukur's stranglehold over the PDP.
Abubakar described the move as an attempt to "save the PDP from the antics of a few desperadoes who have no democratic temperament and are bent on hijacking the party for selfish ends."
Downplaying the impact of the faction's formation, Jonathan's media advisor Reno Omokri told Think Africa Press that the dissidents are "good students of history." Noting that another split failed in 2006, he went on, "Since 1998 only the PDP has remained intact. Other parties formed with it have faded away. The reason the PDP has staying power is because it has an inbuilt conflict resolution mechanism, which is at work even now."
At the heart of the rival PDP's complaints is the alleged authoritarianism within the party. The catalyst for the split was the disqualification of candidates, seen as allied to Jonathan's rivals, for the party's National Working Committee (NWC).
At the press conference announcing the split, Kawu Abubakar Baraje, national chairman for the rival PDP, declared that "we have taken it upon ourselves to rescue the party from its dictatorial leadership." According to Baraje, the combined leadership of Jonathan and Tukur had brought in "political repression, restrictions of freedom of association and arbitrary suspension of members."
After winning the 2011 elections and gaining widespread support for his Transformation Agenda, Jonathan's lacklustre attempts at reform, the fuel subsidy scandal and his propensity to attack critics have antagonised broad swathes of the party.
The president's close ally Tukur allegedly used his power within the party to further his own causes. In 2012 he oversaw the dissolution of the PDP's local chapter in his home state of Adamawa and it is widely speculated that Tukur is trying to line up his son to be the next governor of the state. This meddling has been enough to drive sitting governor Murtala Nyarko, a former Jonathan loyalist, into the rival PDP camp.
No room for critical voices
Several prominent rivals to Jonathan have suffered attempts at intimidation by the PDP leadership. Rotimi Amaechi, a leading member of the breakaway group and the current governor of Rivers State, found out the hard way that Jonathan was not willing to tolerate the ambition of potential rivals.
Rumours of Amaechi's aspirations to run for vice president in 2015 were reported to have caused alarm within Jonathan's inner circle. In July, five members of the Rivers State House of Assembly tried to impeach by force the Speaker of the House, a close ally of Amaechi. Police and military stood by as the lawmakers and their supporters attacked the House.
This is very serious
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