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For most of the past eleven years, the Peoples Democratic Party has held sway over politics in Nigeria. The party, which has controlled the federal government since 1999, also produced a majority of the state executives – thus cementing its hold on the nation.

Buoyed by the attendant access to national resources that this engenders, young and wizened politicians thought it best to join the ruling party and hide under its sturdy umbrella to nurture their ambition. Its leaders, unmindful of the dangers of hubris, have also taken to boasting that the party – the largest party in Africa, according to its promoters – will continue to provide the leadership for the country in the next 60 years.

On current assessment, though, that might actually sound wildly optimistic. The party is currently locked into an internal struggle that might either remake it or mar its continued existence. Of course this is not the first crisis the party has undergone.

The party has always, over the past couple of years – especially when elections were around the corner – revealed a predilection for eruptions as its gaggle of big men and women struggle with the need to subsume their ego for party discipline.

Of late, some of those who left the party in a huff over their defeat in the run-up to the last election have started retracing their steps back. The most nationally significant of these being former vice president,

Atiku Abubakar who is leading his band of supporters back into the party.

So, the party appears to be gaining further strengths. But in this also lies its weakness. The fabled large tent of the party is now struggling with coping with the large crowd huddling under it. The party is in turmoil and unsure how to accommodate the mostly conflicting needs of its many factions.

The leadership appears to be smack in the middle of the road that these new interest groups need to pass – and it thus being stream-rolled. The national chairman of the PDP, Vincent Ogbulafor is fighting a personal battle to hold on to both his post and his liberty. On Monday, he lost a legal challenge to his arrest and trial by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over alleged misappropriation of millions of naira. A conviction could send him to jail for years.

One of the most coherent forces against the PDP national leadership is led by a disparate group of individuals united mostly by their disdain for the leadership of Mr. Ogbulafor and his team. These include people such as former Senate president, Ken Nnamani and a former Speaker of the House,

Bello Masari, former governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili and his former campaign director, Aleigho Dokpesi.

These politicians, who have recently been suspended by the party, say their goal is to reform the party and make it more responsive to the needs of Nigerians. There are, however, dark mutterings that this might mutate into the breakaway of the group to form another political party. This appears far-fetched; but the PDP could benefit from a well-structured reform pushed by its members if this is well intentioned.

Which is exactly where the worry lies. More hard headed analysis would show that all this commotion is little better than posturing and scheming for relevance ahead of next year’s national election. This would mean that rather than a belief in the high minded speeches they have been delivering, members of the reform group want nothing better than a smoother access to the feeding trough for themselves and their followers. Incidentally, this appears to be the assessment of the Ogbulafor-led executive of the party.

No matter. The fact that there is a very visible division in the perception of leaders of the PDP on which direction the party should follow presents immense opportunities for positive-minded members of the party (no sniggering here) to come together and inject a more civic orientation into the activities of an organisation that is tagged with the slightly demeaning title of People Deceiving People party.

Because of its size and reach, the goings-on within the PDP matter to Nigeria. The acting president, who is also the party’s number one member, should step into the party’s fray to forge a more responsive body out of this behemoth. It makes little sense to talk grandly of ensuring electoral reform at the national level when the nation’s biggest party is in thrall to the politics of gangsterism and opacity.

Nigeria’s political system is no doubt in need of reform. One place to start is within the PDP.