…As new Caretaker Committee is inaugurated, party chairman admits to years of “disunity and exclusion”
…but observers question if three months is enough to mend a fractured family
CALABAR –The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Cross River state officially turned a new page on Wednesday with the inauguration of an 18-member Caretaker Committee, a move aimed at rescuing the party from a prolonged crisis of internal strife and electoral failure NEGROIDHAVEN can inform.
In an inaugural address in Calabar the state capital metropolis, the newly appointed Chairman, Rt. Hon. Bassey Eko Ewa, did not shy away from the party’s troubles, painting a picture of a political giant brought to its knees by its own hand.
“For too long, our great party in this state has been divided by personal interests and narrow leadership styles,” Ewa stated before a gathering of party leaders and stakeholders. “We cannot continue with a system where the opinion of a few people, even when wrong, is treated as law, while the majority are silenced.”
The committee, constituted by the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) and composed of members from all 18 Local Government Areas, has a clear but daunting mandate: to reconcile aggrieved members, rebuild the party’s structures from the ground up, and position it to challenge the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) within a period not exceeding three months.
Ewa’s speech was a catalogue of past failures, acknowledging that the party had “lost members, lost elections, and most painfully, lost the trust of the grassroots” under the previous administration. He pledged a new era of “openness, justice, and collective decision-making,” famously quipping that “two good heads are better than one.”
A Mandate Fraught with Challenges
However, political analysts and insiders are questioning whether the 90-day timeline is a realistic runway for a mission of this magnitude.
“The diagnosis is perfect. The party has been haemorrhaging due to autocracy and exclusion,” said Dr. Aniebet Ukpe, a Calabar-based political scientist. “But prescribing a three-month treatment for a four-year ailment seems optimistic, to say the least. The wounds are deep; the bitterness is real. You cannot simply declare ‘unity’ and expect everyone to fall in line. The real work involves delicate negotiations, confidence-building, and appeasing powerful figures who feel sidelined.”
The committee’s primary task is reconciliation—to woo back high-profile members who have defected to other parties and to reinvigorate a disillusioned grassroots base. Ewa made a direct appeal, stating, “The PDP is your home. We may have had our differences, but the door is open for everyone to return.”
Yet, the very need for such an appeal underscores the scale of the problem. The party’s internal crisis was starkly visible in the build-up to the recently suspended State Congresses, which prompted the NWC’s intervention.
The Ghost of Ambitions Future
Further complicating the reconciliation drive is the unspoken elephant in the room: the looming 2026 gubernatorial primaries. Political observers note that the current truce is fragile and likely to be tested when the committee’s term ends and the battle for the party’s ticket and executive positions begins in earnest.
“A caretaker committee can manage affairs, but it cannot extinguish the burning ambitions of various factions,” noted a party chieftain who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Everyone is being polite now, but what happens in three months when we have to elect new leaders? That is when we will know if this reconciliation is genuine or just a temporary ceasefire enforced by Abuja.”
The committee has vowed to be driven by “service, not personal ambition.” But the true test of its success will be whether it can create a transparent and inclusive process for the forthcoming congresses—a process that avoids the very pitfalls that necessitated its creation.
As the PDP in Cross River State embarks on this critical 90-day journey, the political landscape watches with keen interest. The party has correctly identified its maladies and has a prescribed course of treatment. The pressing question remains: is three months enough time for the patient to heal, or is this merely a pause before the next storm?
Recall that in the fourth week of September, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the State elected a new 39-member State Executive Committee, led by Venatius Ikem as Chairman, in a congress that its leaders hailed as transparent and legitimate, even as it laid bare the deep fissures fracturing the party.
The election, which took place at the Venetian Arena in Calabar, saw Ikem reportedly secure a landslide 1,500 votes, a figure repeatedly announced by the Chairman of the Electoral Panel, Jones Chukwudi, who presided over the meticulous counting of votes for all 39 positions.
Wednesday’s development creates a parallel system in the PDP in Cross River.
