From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
As electioneering commenced last week, the crisis in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has continued unabated.
On a daily basis, what started as an administrative lapse over the composition and release of the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) list in fragrant disregard to the party’s leadership has gradually degenerated into a full-blown crisis.
The rift has even permeated into all the important organs of the party’s leadership, major chieftains, and leaders.
It has also spread to some members of the APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), which is the main antagonist, then the leadership of the PCC and by extension the presidential and vice presidential candidates, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, who are now caught up in this battle of attrition.
The bone of contention currently is on whose table would the bulk of the composition, announcement, unveiling, and issuing of letters to those that made the campaign list stop, as well as why the PCC should usurp the responsibility of the party’s leadership in handling campaign activities?
And more seriously, why should the leadership that ought to be the custodian of the campaign council list be the ones complaining of the exclusion of its members and ultimately, who should statutorily take charge of the entire campaign activities?
Like the mistake of the Muslim-Muslim joint ticket, the lingering controversy surrounding the campaign council list has continued to fester to the magnitude of threatening to disintegrate the ruling party after the official commencement of political campaigns last Wednesday.
From the rejection of the campaign council list right from when it was wrongly released to the public, to the backslashes that have trailed the attempts by the PCC leadership to inaugurate the members, to the announcement of cancellation and indefinite postponement of campaign activities, the ruling party has lately been on the reserve gear.
At the peak of the cold war between the party’s leadership and the PCC, campaign activities were not only halted, but also suspended indefinitely.
And announcing the cancellation of the activities, PCC Director General and governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, claimed that the action was to accommodate certain interests in the 422-member campaign council list.
The rift clearly came to the climax when the ruling party, could not outrightly kick-start its campaign activities last week as proposed, despite the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officially lifting the ban on all electioneering for presidential and National Assembly polls.
As if the crumbling empire was not enough, the health status of the party’s presidential candidate, Tinubu, has continued to give party members concerns, as well as dominate their discussions, which heightened with Tinubu’s frequent unscheduled visits to Europe.
Ordinarily, the visits would not have mattered anything to the party members apart from the tongues that have started wagging on whether the country is apparently on another nightmare experience of a London-visiting president.
Again, his continued absence at crucial public functions where his running mate, Kashim Shettima, who has become his permanent representative, during the build-up to the campaigns and elections proper, is now a source of worry to many.
And while other political parties are gradually and steadily engaging the speed gear to accelerate to the finish line in next year’s presidential and other elections, the ruling party is still struggling to paper the widening cracks in its ranks.
After several attempts to portray the ruling party as a peaceful and united house, the bubble finally burst mid last week after the marathon meeting of the party’s leadership, the NWC, which saw the party organ reading the riot act to its presidential candidate.
The NWC warned of an impending doom staring the party in the face ahead of the crucial presidential election, handing out a take-it or leave-it directive to its presidential candidate, Tinubu, to completely handover the management of campaign activities to the party, a warning many say is an albatross to the party.
So, miffed by the escalation of the ugly developments in the party, its National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, and his NWC members by extension, in a draft warning letter to the party’s presidential candidate, urged him to check the calamity dangling before the neck of the party.
Among other directives, the party’s leadership specifically requested its presidential candidate to call the leadership of the PCC to order from progressing in error or risk conceding victory in next year’s presidential election to any of the opposition parties.
The strong-worded letter NWC wrote to Tinubu reads: “May I, therefore, point out to Your Excellency, that winning elections is a cooperative, as well as collaborative effort, done in transparency and disinterested manner by all parties concerned, by respecting established boundaries and acknowledging the contributions of everyone.
“The NWC believes that any sign of disarray in the party’s ranks will undermine the spirit and ethos of the campaign and give an undue alarm to faithful members and followers of the party across the country.
“At the same, such a development would undoubtedly come as ‘Manna from Heaven’ for the opposition parties, whose only desire when all else fails, is to see the introduction of rancour, division, and disinclination in the leadership of our great party.
“I am sure Your Excellency will agree with me that this is an eventuality that we must do all in our power to prevent this from happening. You will also agree that we owe it a duty as leaders to provide guidance by example to the rest of the party, including the PCC, to abide by agreements and adhere strictly to the work ethos that has been adopted by all of us.
“It is only by doing so that we will establish the premise for victory and gain the trust and confidence of our dear countrymen and women. Without further admonishment or complaints, I wish hereby to call upon Your Excellency to restrain the PCC from undertaking solo projects of this nature and agree to work with all stakeholders towards taking our party to victory.
“I shall not find it necessary to reiterate the importance of the party in the overall scheme of things in these campaigns, and the singular position of the NWC in driving the process towards our securing of victory in the polls.
“It suffices for me to convey the general and overwhelming sentiment of the NWC with regards to the ill-timed and unfortunate release of the PCC list, which confounded rather than pleased the members and whose withdrawal will assure the NWC of Your Excellency’s respect and disposition towards the party, as well as the magnanimous spirit of cooperation towards achieving.”
The letter further exposed the bitterness, rancour, and unending leadership rivalry in the party.
More drama had unfolded in quick succession when the same NWC made a U-turn to deny authorship of the letter, describing it as an unsigned draft despite agreeing to raise it during its marathon meeting on Wednesday.
Denying knowledge of the trending letter, the party’s leadership, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, claimed that there was no need for such a letter since; “the National Chairman and our presidential candidate maintain cordial and effective communication channels, and enjoy full liberty of open and frank conversations on matters of interest to the party and our presidential campaign.”
Morka while disassociating the NWC from the ‘draft’ letter, claimed it did not emanate from the party’s leadership.
Morka in his rebuttal entitled: “APC PCC – Abdullahi Adamu did not write Tinubu”: “Our attention has been drawn to a ‘Draft’ letter in circulation purportedly written by Abdullahi Adamu, the national chairman of our great party, addressed to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of our great party, expressing dissatisfaction over the recently released list of the PCC.
“To be clear, the ‘Draft’ letter did not emanate from the party. An unsigned letter that marks itself as a ‘Draft’ cannot and should not be attributed to its purported author.
“The national chairman of our party and our presidential candidate maintain cordial and effective communication channels, and enjoy full liberty of open and frank conversations on matters of interest to the party and our presidential campaign.
“As such, an unsigned ‘Draft’ letter of the kind in circulation is patently unnecessary and of no qualitative value to engagement between the party and the PCC.
“We will not be distracted by the wishes and actions of detractors that wait gleefully but in vain for some kind of crisis to erupt between the party and the PCC. We stand united, as a party, in our resolve and commitment to execute a focused and issue-driven campaign to persuade Nigerians to renew our mandate in next year’s general election.”
But instead of the statement bringing the desired succour to the agitated party’s leadership, it worsened the situation with some members of the NWC poised for war.
They had insisted that their decision to write the letters to Tinubu and President Buhari must be implemented with dispatch to stop further usurpation of the NWC’s responsibility by the PCC leadership.
Reacting angrily to the denial of the letter through Morka’s statement, a member of the NWC, who spoke to Sunday Sun in confidence, expressed shock over the actions of the party’s spokesperson, maintaining that the party’s leadership did not authorise such action.
“We resolved during our meeting to write to our presidential candidate and President Buhari to specifically register our anger over the actions of the PCC in usurping our responsibility.
“I can confirm to you that NWC authored that letter written to our presidential candidate in circulation, but it was unfortunate that it got leaked the way it did at that stage. The leakage is regrettable, but that should not have, in any way, changed the decision we took during our meeting.
“If the letter leaked and so what. Some of our members are angry that the publicity secretary issued that statement without authorisation from us. We never agreed on such a decision to warrant him making such a U-turn unilaterally on the decision we took during our meeting on Wednesday.
“Many of us have agreed to stand by our initial decision on the letters to Tinubu and President Buhari. We cannot fold our hands and watch the PCC take over our responsibility. If for no other reason, it will set a bad precedent. If the PCC leadership succeeds in this, our position in the party is no longer secured,” the NWC member fumed in a chat with Sunday Sun in Abuja.
Political watchers are deeply concerned that for the ruling party, it has been from one error to another with little or nothing to celebrate after lifting the ban on political campaigns.
When it tried to leverage on the successful outcome of its presidential primary, the mismanagement of the aggrieved presidential aspirants eclipsed the peaceful primary.
It did not take long before what many considered the wrong choice of a Muslim-Muslim ticket polarised the ruling party the more.
Also the goof in allegedly hiring fake Bishops to stabilise the burning anger of loyalists heightened the situation.
Disappointingly, the lingering controversy over the campaign council list has actually dwarfed other challenges in the party.
And regardless of the side of the coin one wants to settle for, the truth remains that the ruling party has not looked every inch a party that will go into the elections as one house.