Jonathan’s aide urges PDP governors to end party’s crisis

…Says history beckons

By John Alechenu

A former Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Youth and Student Affairs, Comrade Jude Imagwe, has urged governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rise to the occasion and lead efforts to rescue the party from what he described as an existential crisis.

Imagwe, in an open letter addressed to the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum and Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, said the party is at a critical crossroads and requires honest reflection, decisive leadership and urgent corrective action to avert collapse.

He lamented that the PDP has become enmeshed in deep internal crises, accusing party leaders of pandering to factional interests at the expense of the party’s survival. According to him, the current leadership has dismissed wise counsel, tolerated disorder and allowed internal divisions to fester.

“A Governors’ Forum that should have served as the party’s stabilising anchor drifted into complicity by inaction,” Imagwe said. “Where leadership should have brokered peace, it permitted fracture. Where it should have enforced discipline, it tolerated disorder. Where it should have drawn red lines, it blurred them.”

Describing the situation as a defining moment in the party’s history, Imagwe warned that silence in the face of crisis had become complicity.

“There are rare moments in the life of a political party when silence becomes complicity and truth becomes an obligation. The PDP stands at such a moment today,” he said, noting that the party, once a dominant force in Nigeria’s democratic landscape, now faces its most profound internal crisis since inception.

Addressing Governor Mohammed directly, Imagwe cautioned that history would judge the current leadership harshly if urgent corrective measures are not taken.

“When you assumed leadership of the PDP Governors’ Forum, the party had fourteen governors — a formidable bloc capable of stabilising crises, enforcing discipline and projecting relevance,” he said. “Today, the arithmetic of decline is stark. This is not routine opposition politics; it is institutional erosion.”

He stressed that leadership is not ceremonial but requires the ability to anticipate danger, arbitrate conflict and act decisively, arguing that the party’s decline reflects failures in these areas.

Imagwe also criticised what he described as the rejection of experienced counsel, particularly advice reportedly offered by former Senate President Bukola Saraki.

“That counsel was brushed aside,” he said. “Today, the consequences are evident — a hollowed structure, diminished leverage and a party negotiating its survival rather than shaping national debate.”

He further noted what he called the irony of the party’s weakened posture towards institutions, observing that an electoral umpire it once challenged from a position of strength now determines outcomes while the PDP watches from a diminished position.

Despite his criticisms, Imagwe expressed confidence that the PDP still has an opportunity to redeem and rejuvenate itself, regain public trust and reclaim its role as a viable alternative in Nigeria’s democratic process.

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