Recently, a blame game of sort erupted within the four walls of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bauchi state. Accusations of abandonment of the party and allegations of anti-party activities heightened with the double-barrel named Education Minister, Adamu Adamu and the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro, placed on a bunsen burner, which uses a gas of the mixture of propane and butane, probably for heating and combustion?
A former aide of the immediate past governor of Bauchi state, Isah Abu Yusuf, is leading what he described on his Facebook page as a “struggle for freedom.” Isa and his co-travellers see it as both abandonment of party loyalists and anti-party tendency for the TETFUND scribe to allegedly award very big contracts to members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Bauchi state.
This, according to them, happened at a time when members of the Bauchi state chapter of the APC and by implications the party are facing lots of challenges culminating in their inability to pay party Secretariat staff allowances and even settle office accommodation rents. This is in spite of the fact that the party has many of its members at the National Assembly as well as the Bauchi state House of Assembly including the PDP backed APC Speaker of the Bauchi state House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Abubakar Y Suleiman.
More so, it has minister Adamu Adamu, Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties Yau Shehu Darazo, Customs Comptroller-General Hameed Ali, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro and numerous other federal political appointees of Bauchi state origin as members. The legislators as well as the appointees have given the party less importance since the APC got to power in 2015.
And not only in Bauchi state, but also in Abuja and elsewhere across the country, the APC is known to have an ineffective structure and a very poor rewarding system. The crisis that characterized the party across the country during the primary elections ahead of the 2019 general elections is a pointer to the fact that adequate coordination is lacking in the party. To a large extent, almost all officials of the party acted to the dictates of their personal wishes. This, amongst other factors, saw the party lose some states to the opposition PDP and also eventually led to the fall of Adams Oshiohmole as its national chairman.
As mentioned earlier, another factor which is not helping matters in the APC is its very poor rewarding system. While democracy is simply about good governance, politics, its bastion, is about numbers. The ability of a politician or a political party to rally round political heavyweights as mobilizers and continuously have their loyalty determines to a very large extent how successful that politician or political party can be. But the APC sees things differently.
Probably, cashing on President Buhari’s cult-like followership, the party takes almost everyone for granted. Perhaps the APC believes that loyalty to it by its members is compulsory assuming that the members need the party way more than the party needs them just as demonstrated by the erstwhile governor of Bauchi state, M A Abubakar. Together with the Bauchi state party chairman, Uba Nana, M A Abubakar tampered with the APC primary elections ahead of the 2019 general elections.
And in a manner that was by and large tyrannical, M A Abubakar and Uba Nana installed who they wanted as party flag bearers for the last general elections. Worse of it, after mismanaging the primary elections and the general elections to lose his seat, the former governor left for Abuja abandoning the APC, a politically wrong and dangerous act. And that is why the Bauchi state APC is more at war than in peace today. It is in a latent war. The party may appear to be in peace but it is actually in pieces.
In the annals of world politics, no political party that has no leadership has ever had its members disciplined, loyal and committed to its cause. Adamu Adamu, who is now the party leader, is obviously not willing to take up his responsibility. It is said that he is not a politician. But that’s not an excuse since he’s occupying a political position.
It is also said that he is giving the party less attention because no matter what happens; come rain, come sun shine, as long as Buhari is the president, he is a Minister. A very dangerous political attitude. Those who are close to the minister should tell him that such political attitude is inimical to the entire project APC.
The earlier the minister and other leaders of the party realise the urgent need for them to take up responsibility and save the party from total collapse, the better. The Bauchi state APC is at the edge of the cliff and any further recklessness will see it fall into a valley.
Jarmajo is a member of the APC in Bauchi state.
