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Ordinarily, the All Progressives Congress (APC), a party that surprisingly came to power in 2015, beating an incumbent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that had sat for 16 unbroken years on power stool, should by now be celebrating that feat, but it appears all is not well with it. The habitual in-fighting arising from individual interests appears to confirm the “strange bed fellows” appellation ascribed to it.
Yinka Odumakin, a publicity secretary of the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, had said at a time that the APC was an assembly of politicians without lucid ideology but mainly driven by hatred for ex-president Goodluck Jonathan.
“What is APC? What is its ideology? What can the APC offer Nigerians? Who are the people that constitute the APC? PDP leaders moved to a party and you called that party APC? The APC will not last long in Nigeria’s political space; because it is a propaganda party put together just to oust Jonathan. Anyone who hated Jonathan was welcome to the fold. The formation of APC was not about Nigeria and Nigerians. It was about hatred for Jonathan and how to push him out by all crooked means. Now that Jonathan is out, their job is finished as well,” Odumakin had said shortly after the party took charge.
The APC had quickly swung into action by making its existence felt after it was registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on July 30, 2013. Following the successful registration, INEC withdrew the certificates of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). A breakaway faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) led by Rochas Okorocha, Imo State governor, was also part of the deal.
Nearly a year after it was registered, June 14, 2014 precisely, backed by Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the party who headed the defunct ACN, John Odigie-Oyegun, a former Edo State governor, was elected ‘unopposed’ as the national chairman of the APC at its first national convention in Abuja, along with other executive positions across the country.
The fallout of the convention showed early signs that serious challenges awaited the broom party after Tom Ikimi, ex-Foreign Affairs minister, who initially insisted on contesting against Odigie-Oyegun, angrily left the party, and alleged that he was forced to step down as a result of fierce horse-trading among the contending forces.
The APC internal crises then took a more dangerous dimension when Tinubu, who had backed Ahmed Lawan for Senate president and Femi Gbajabiamila for the post of speaker of the House of Representatives, watched the inauguration of the 8th Assembly on television. He could not muster the courage to attend the event because his two candidates could not clinch the exalted posts at the National Assembly.
Tinubu, who did not hide his disappointment over the emergence of Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as speaker of the House of Representatives, called for the suspension of those involved in the enthronement of the leadership at the National Assembly contrary to party’s laid down rules.
But sources familiar with the matter had told BDSUNDAY at the time that the trial of Bukola Saraki at the Code Of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) over alleged false asset declaration while he served as governor of Kwara State was masterminded by the leadership of the APC to pay him back in his own coin following his role in the emergence of the new leadership at National Assembly. The party has never known peace ever since.
There were also the skirmishes in the party over the Edo and Ondo State gubernatorial primaries last year which nearly scattered the broom. The crisis was however, more pronounced in the Ondo’s case as leaders allowed what analysts described as clash of interests, sheer shenanigan, treachery, horse-trading and primordial sentiments to becloud the collective interest and internal democracy. The National Working Committee (NWC) was accused of outright favouritism in the processes which angered Tinubu to no end.
This culminated in Tinubu and his close allies boycotting the campaign rally where President Muhammadu Buhari vowed that the party’s standard bearer, Rotimi Akeredolu, now governor, would win the election.
Before the rally, Tinubu had asked Odigie-Oyegun, who he backed for chairmanship position, to tender his resignation over alleged manipulation of the primary that produced Akeredolu, over his preferred candidate, Olusegun Abraham.
In the last two years, there had been crises in some states under the APC over interests that area not mass-driven. Some state governors have had to clamp down on some members of the party in their states to contain the ambition of such politicians.
With two years gone and the party leaders still sharply divided on many national issues, sometimes making statements that indict their party and the administration they brought into existence, pundit say it is a sign of a house on fire.
Political observers also express worries that the ambitions of Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor who was hugely credited for the success of the APC at the 2015 polls; Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president; Nasir El-Rufai, incumbent governor of Kaduna State; Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Kwara State, now number three citizen, and the failing health of President Buhari may affect the chances of the broomassociation in retaining power beyond 2019. It is also being predicted that certain members of the APC will dump the party to form new alliances that may eventually wrest power from the APC.
While the Saraki–led National Assembly and some members of the APC had in the last two years entangled in disagreements with the Buhari–led Executive, particularly over issues relating to budget, and lopsided appointments, among others, some chieftains of the party are on one another’s jugular over who is more relevant in the Buhari administration or otherwise.
In the last two years, appointees of the Presidents have been seen to be working at cross purposes. For instance, it was a report that was written by the Department of State Service (DSS) against Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that foiled Magu’s confirmation by the Senate. Moreover, it was also the EFCC that blew the whistle over the huge amount of money found in an apartment at Osborne, Ikoyi, Lagos, which another department of same government, National Intelligence Agency (NIA), claims belongs to it. Today, among the workers at the presidency, there appears to be division. That is why sterling performance by a vice president of the country riles some elements. Some members of the cabal are allegedly daring the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, yet they are all in the ruling APC.
Two years after the inauguration of the APC government, analysts say that internal democracy is still a scare commodity in the broom party. It is believed that the absence of internal democracy was the reason behind the rancorous primary organised for the 57 local government and local council development authorities (LCDA) at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos last weekend.
Many aggrieved members reacted sharply against the alleged imposition of candidates and what they perceived as deliberate efforts to thwart their democratic rights to pick candidates that will contest the July 22 council election on the party’s platform.
Some aggrieved members accused the APC of not weaning itself from the ills of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), lamenting that the ruling party has murdered democracy and also deliberately denying the electorate their right to elect their leaders at the grassroots.
Some angry members also complained that it was undemocratic for Bola Tinubu to have ordered that election must not hold to fill some spaces in some local government areas as such positions had already been filled.
“Setting aside certain posts for some people in an election that should be open for everyone to contest is undemocratic. We were told that Asiwaju had declared that some vacancies had already been filled; this is after some aspirants had paid the necessary amount for forms and other necessary fees. I must tell you, people are no longer comfortable with this so-called consensus; it is an imposition and we say no to it. This is not democracy and it is a negative example from a party that claims to be righting the wrongs of the past,” said an aggrieved party man who simply introduced himself as Jide.
The Ahmed Makarfi-led faction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in a statement by Dayo Adeyeye, its spokesperson, said the APC had squandered the democratic governance bequeathed to it by the PDP.
It described APC as an embodiment of deceit and impostor, stressing that the party was now synonymous with failed election campaign promises, serial lies, and that the broom association is a colony of incompetent economic managers, selective anti-corruption fighters, architects of excruciating hardship and policy summersault.
Many observers say that unless the ruling party takes some urgent and decisive steps to address the numerous ills in its fold, it is yet to be seen how it will remain a bunch that will speak with one voice during the next round of election in 2019, let alone retaining the seat.
NATHANIEL AKHIGBE
