A frontline aspirant for the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, thinks the ward and local government council elections crises will not necessarily lead to implosion of the party. PATRICK ANDREW, takes a glance at the former labour leader’s optimism.
Strange mixture The APC by the nature of its formation in all considerations was a child of circumstance. Different political parties with clearly antagonistic philosophies thought it necessary to gang up when it became inevitable just to oust the then ruling and obviously arrogant and extravagant Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Added to the fact that Nigerians, after 16 years of experiencing what some termed a leaking umbrella, were tired of the party that once boasted that it would rule Nigeria for 60 years opted for a fresh breathe irrespective of the alternative shade on offer.
Invariably, though the peculiar nature of forming a political party were clearly absent, strange bed fellows decided for the purpose of vicious convenience to come together against an obvious hardto-beat foe. Essentially, therefore all indications likely to lead to some painful differences, points of divergence, including bitter internal disagreements, were anticipated but given scant consideration.
That all was not well with the APC began to manifest early on following the sudden or was it surprise victory at the 2015 polls, especially as against all expectations, the PDP leading light at the time, President Goodluck Jonathan, stayed faithful to his words that his ambition was not worth the blood of any Nigerian. It took the APC administration some six months to constitute a cabinet, which many later dismissed as largely a composition of the same sour taste that had injured and produced a disjointed dentistry.
Muted voices became blared Suddenly, some members of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) President Muhammadu Buhari’s party that consented to the marriage of convenience along with APGA, nPDP, ACN, ANPP, publicly wept over perceived neglect.
The height of the complaint was when the wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari, lamented that hyenas and jackals had taken over the government. In between, persecution of certain National Assembly officers, who against all odds defied the national leadership of the party, ganged up with the main opposition PDP to assume the leadership of the upper and lower chambers, daily assumed an embarrassing dimension. Governors, ministers, legislators and other state and national officers sang in different and obviously blaring and discordant tunes and the irritant arrogance, impunity and disdain for internal democracy began to take vicious grip at every vestige of the party’s activities.
A frontline aspirant for the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, thinks the ward and local government council elections crises will not necessarily lead to implosion of the party. PATRICK ANDREW, takes a glance at the former labour leader’s optimism. Ward and council congresses Expectedly, the struggle for the control of the party structure began to raise its ugly head early on especially following the dying ember of 2017 when one major key player and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, jettisoned the broom and returned to the umbrella. Then came the congresses.
All hell seems let loose as state after state, local council after local council, ward after wards showed not just strained relationship and a huge gulf amongst the party members, pointer to likely break up: implosion. Along come Adams Oshiomhole Theatrical in prose and fi erce with words, the former labour leader thinks assumed implosion is only the figment of some person’s imagination. He beat his cheat that given the size of the party, the integrity of the leading lights within the APC, his clout and dynamism, expected implosion would a mirage. He says given the chance to pilot the affairs of the party as its national chairman, he will adopt a bottomup approach where all the concerns of stakeholders will be considered in taking major policy decisions that will impact positively on the party.
“I believe that APC has been formed by men and women and seasoned politicians who over the years have come to the conclusion that for Nigeria’s democracy to flourish, we must move away from having just one party after the 1999 elections which was conducted by the military. “Beginning with the elections the then ruling party manipulated and co-opted everybody that was co-optable, compromised everyone that was available for procurement and in the process neutralised the opposition and forcefully took over the AD from the South-West.
It planted internal contradictions in the ANPP by co-opting its chairman as an advisor to then President Obasanjo and took other measures that were designed to make sure that they were no viable opposition.
“The result of this was that we had a fragmented opposition with a very powerful ruling party and a president who was battling to understand between a military head of state and elected president who must function according to rules and laws, who has executive powers but not legislative and judicial powers.
“We can argue to what extent the party has bonded because, we can say that they should have been an organic reaction after the merger leading to a cohesive, virile political party. Some may say it is a physical reaction where the different parts seem to be wobbling and are not able to bond and these are the manifestations in some of the crises you have seen here and there.
“But any party that is tilted towards the progressives, that is pro-people, that is not governed by one god father, people who feel that they are equals in a voluntary association are bound to engage in internal contestation, even when they agree on the objectives and the destination. It is always a viable thing to have a debate around various policy choices and tools available even to arrive at the destination, which is not in dispute. This doesn’t necessarily lead to implosion”. Misplaced optimism?
True, Oshiomhole, who may likely slug it out with incumbent Chief John Odigie Oyegun, Chief Clement Ebri, Chief Don Etiebet and Comrade Timi Frank, the later being constantly on the neck of Oyegun, whose leadership style he apparently abhours, has the dynamism to rejig the party. But will he have enough time to fashion out convincing reconciliation strategies sufficient to soothe frayed nerves? Former Interim National Chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, sharply diff ers from the labour leader’s excitement.
He is convinced the conduct of parallel congresses will definitely affect the party’s fortunes in the 2019 general elections. “I think the National Executive Committee of the party is going to sort it out depending on the circumstances of each state. It ought not to have happened. Now that it has happened, it is the duty of the national executive council to look at it and say this one is genuine or the other one is parallel congress.”
“The crisis will definitely affect the fortune of any party. But it is the duty of the party that it controls it”, he said when prodded to speak on the likelihood of adverse effect of the crises. Senator Kabir Garba Marafa representing Zamfara Central corroborates: “Unless the party does what is right, unless the leaders at the top look at these things eye ball to eye ball, there is going to be a problem”, he said insisting that what happened in Zamfara State clearly demonstrated that undemocratic elements were out to ruin the APC and by extension Mr. President.
In Rivers State, Sen. Magnus Abe faction of the APC secured the court injunction that threw the party into the crisis appeared and thinks unless certain elements are restrained the APC may be heading for the rocks. Former governor of Ekiti, Chief Segun Oni painted a perfect picture when he surmised: “We are approaching a windstorm, which is the election and I believe we need to take caution on both sides.
“We are not scavenging, neither are we scavengers. We have been receiving pressures from different parties that we should come for the tickets, but we said no, because we want this to be an example and become a new thinking that when you lose the primary, you must stay in your party even when you are popular. “But if they continue to harass my supporters, I may quit the party, because I have responsibility not only to protect them but ensure that they are not taken for a ride,” Oni stated. We have refrained from looking at the critical situations in Kaduna, Bauchi, Kano, Niger, Plateau, Imo, Cross River, Kebbi, Delta, Edo, fringe situations in Katsina, Lagos, Oyo, Gombe, Osun, Kwara States etc where key APC leaders are up in arms. Time, indeed, will tell.
