A Yoruba adage says agbakiiwalojakioriomotuntunwo. It presupposes that elders are sta¬bilising forces for the peace of society. It gives preeminence to the role of elders in guaranteeing stability and peaceful co-existence of various com¬ponents of the society.
There is no doubt that Chief BisiAkande, a former governor and pioneer chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is one of the respected leaders and leading lights, not just in the formation of the APC, but the harmonisation and synchronisation needed for a formidable opposition. I commend the dedication, perseverance and commitment that resulted in the successful transforma¬tion of the erstwhile opposition party to the ruling party, the first of its kind in Nigeria’s chequered political evolution.
In the context of where the APC has found itself today, the party elders, with due respect and deference, have not performed to the ad¬miration of most of us who see the elders of the APC as role models. By his recent statement, Chief BisiAkan¬de has opened up to Nigerians the different categories of leaders in the party. Any well-meaning member of the party will, however, understand that there is something patheti¬cally wrong with the postulations encapsu¬lated in the treatise signed by the elder states¬man which was meant to be his own public intervention in the crisis of leadership that is threatening the long-dreamed achievement of the party.
What I found most confounding in the trea¬tise is the high moral horse upon which the re¬vered former national chairman sought to ride in denouncing certain actors in the current im¬passe within the party, particularly at the Na¬tional Assembly. It is unfortunate that the for¬mer chairman could not openly acknowledge that the unfortunate drama that played out in the two chambers of the National Assembly, and more specifically at the Senate, on June 9, 2015 was a clear demonstration of the failure of the party’s leadership to act on time. Their Rome was on fire but the Emperor was asleep.
Chief Akande confirmed in that interven¬tion the common fear of an average Northern¬er in dealing with politicians from the South-west. In truth, but for the uncommon miracle that glued the two regions together in the last election, they have never really been success¬ful associates in any political venture. Thus, when the 2015 polls brought them together and brought out resounding victory, many had thought it was going to be the beginning of a fresh relationship that would help shape the fu¬ture of Nigeria for the better.
But now, it appears that the like of Chief Akande had all along not been happy about the marriage of the North and South-west.
Maybe, that was why Chief Akande looked down with so much condescension on leaders of the North in that treatise, such that he could even isolate/identify ‘democrats’ within the APC and who are not from the North. Hear him:“Demo¬crats among the APC leadership insisted on se-lection by mock elections, rather than tribal or sectional considerations.
As a result of primary elections, Ahmed Lawan and George Akume emerged as APC candidates for Senate Presi¬dent and Deputy respectively, while Femi Gba¬jabiamila and Mohammed Monguno emerged as the Speaker and Deputy for the House of Representatives.”
There are many questions surrounding the ‘mock elections’ in reference here. The most germane are: How was it that the two personali¬ties that the ‘democrats’ had openly canvassed for were the eventual winners? In that mock election, was every member of the National As¬sembly elected on the platform of the APC pres¬ent? If some of them had boycotted out of anger or for whatever reasons, didn’t elderly wisdom dictate that the party’s leadership should have suspended the mock elections to make it truly transparent and all involving? It was unbecom¬ing of Chief Akande to cast aspersions on the generality of Northern leaders and group them in the same camp as oil/drug barons and crimi¬nals.
So, Baba Akande was aware of a meeting held with the intent of hijacking the APC for the PDP and kept silent all along? Assuming, but without conceding that a meeting actually took place as is being alleged and that the focus was to see how the nPDP would benefit from the current administration, how has that become a crime, particularly if those involved, for instance, had begun to see deception in the way the ‘cult of elders’ in the old ACN, were going about as if the APC is their sole property?
Another issue agitating my mind is the sud¬den media onslaught against Saraki and co.
Well, this is not unexpected given that the old ACN is well known for such. But, Baba Akande and his group should understand that if they used the media to pull down Goodluck Jonathan, now they are in power, any attempt to pull down Saraki, a member of their party but whose action they currently deride, will lead to the fall of the party. It will be unfor¬tunate to see such old men using their own hands to scatter the same house they had la¬boured to build.
My advice to Chief Akande and co is that while truly Nigeria has much to benefit from the control of the central government by strong political elements from the South-west given their political sophistication. The North has population and that was what helped the APC in 2015.
The records are there for all to see. Thus, what is needed is a care¬ful balancing of the various strengths of each part of the relationship.
If, like he noted, the battle is because of 2019, there must be a much better way to han¬dle the various interests such that the Akande group does not go back to being a regional power lord all over again.
Alao writes from Ibadan
