From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The unfolding events in the All Progressives Congress (APC) since the resignations of its erstwhile National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, and Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, have shown that the ruling party is still deeply enmeshed in unending leadership controversies.
The duo, in an intriguing manner, had bowed out voluntarily after tenaciously clinging on to the positions, fighting a battle of their lives, for more than one year since they assumed offices.
For over one year, the more they tried to wriggle out of the myriads of allegations against them and remain afloat, the more they swim against the tide of troubled water and incurred more enemies for themselves.
In their struggle for survival, the erstwhile chairman had fought hard to defend allegations ranging from high handedness, autocratic administrative style to financial recklessness consistently levied against him by his National Working Committee (NWC) member.
The embattled former governor of Nasarawa State had practical and imaginary enemies to contend with, particularly members of his NWC, the secretariat staff, the presidency, and several stakeholders at each other’s jugular in the endless physical and cold war supremacy battle.
The fierce mêlée got to a crescendo last week when Adamu finally caved in after his uncomplimentary remarks on the announcement of the remaining 10th National Assembly principal officers which angrily pitched him against President Bola Tinubu and other powerful active blocs within the party.
Adamu has previously had one form of rough encounter or the other with President Tinubu, clashed lately with the party’s National Assembly Caucus, members of APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) and other party stakeholders which entangled him more, making it impossible for him to escape the dangling hammer of vengeance.
Before Adamu threw in the towel, according to multiple reliable sources, the angered presidency had unleashed security forces and APC governors on him, pressurising him to either resign honourably or risk prosecution with the alleged petrifying baggage he has been carrying while he was in charge of the party.
Before the final straw that broke the camel’s back, which resulted in Adamu’s resignation, an NWC member, Salihu Moh Lukman, had consistently accused him of financial recklessness, especially in the misappropriation of over N30 billion the party generated from the sale of expression of interest and nomination forms for the 2023 general election.
Explaining what transpired that culminated in Adamu’s resignation, a member of the APC NWC, told Daily Sun in confidence they gave him the devil’s options that left him with no alternative but to quit.
“Adamu had no option but to resign when they proved to him that the presidency does not want his continuation any longer. It was easy to commit him to resignation considering the fact that he has also been battling myriads of allegations levied against him by an NWC member, accusing him of misappropriation of party funds.
“He did the honourable thing of resigning, otherwise if he had continued with the face-off and cold war, particularly with President Tinubu, it would have been worse than this. Adamu knew that he cannot afford to gamble anything any longer,” the source in the NWC told Daily Sun correspondent.
“The case of Omisore is entirely different. The presidency could have easily saved him, but he on his own, refused to continue, claiming that he did not want Adamu to feel that he betrayed him. He had decided to sink with Adamu by resigning too.
“Omisore would have gotten a safe landing because he was not actually the main target by the powerful blocs that want to take charge of the structure of the party but he refused the option of staying behind and resigned,” our source narrated behind-the-camera experience of what transpired that claimed the two key members of the NWC.
Aware that nature abhors a vacuum, the emergence of hitherto Deputy National Chairman (North), Abubakar Kyari, and erstwhile Deputy National Secretary, Festus Fuanter as chairman and secretary in acting capacities had brought temporal calmness to the troubled party last week.
Surprisingly, however, when party members and many Nigerians were hopeful that the resignation of the national chairman has brought the desired and needed lasting peace to the party, the intrigue over who replaces Adamu has already taken centre stage, creating fresh ripples within the party.
Apparently, the jubilation over Adamu’s resignation was short-lived even before it could be consummated by the jostle over who becomes the substantive replacement, especially hunted by the speculations that Kyari, current acting national chairman, may likely make the list of ministerial nominees for the yet to be constituted Federal Executive Council.
Already, the search for a suitable person to fill the about-to-be-vacant position of national chairman has not only started gaining traction but has also heightened the anxiety of party members and deepened the leadership crisis.
Expectedly, the choice of former governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the hue and cry of marginalization by North Central party stakeholders, claiming rightful ownership of the position, has pitched members of the governors’ forum against the party’s leadership, the NWC.
The controversy that resulted in Adamu’s resignation may now be history, however, the role played by the party’s PGF has raised more questions than answers, despite the forum’s Chairman, Hope Uzodimma, absolving his colleagues of any complicity.
Painfully, while the national leadership was still perfecting arrangements to organise a mini-convention, opting tentatively for next month August, an active bloc of the party, the PGF flew a kite by secretly endorsing Ganduje, as Adamu’s anointed replacement.
The proposal, expectedly, has already started generating tension and anxiety among party stakeholders with both the NWC members and North Central party stakeholders declaring war to scuttle and resist such a move.
APC Vice Chairman (North West) and member of NWC, Lukman, drew the first blood when he described the plan to draft Ganduje to replace Adamu as insensitive and a move to take party members for granted.
Lukman had argued that it is clearly injustice and insensitive for the North West geopolitical zone that produced the Deputy Senate President and Speaker, House of Representatives to still be considered for the position of national chairman of the party.
Fuming against the plan, Lukman bluntly wrote: “So far, as things are, only the President and governors’ blocs are active in the negotiation to produce and engage leaders of APC. Already, part of the speculations emerging from the governors’ bloc is that Ganduje is being considered to succeed Adamu.
“If this is true, it only suggests insensitivity and taking members of the party for granted. This is without prejudice to the person of Ganduje. This is because such a choice will completely distort the zoning arrangement that informed the present configuration of the leadership of the National Assembly.
“With the Speaker of House of Representatives and Deputy Senate President coming from North West and North Central shut out of consideration, to propose the party’s national chairman to move to North West from North Central will be unjust and almost a political suicide.
“We must caution our governors that since the emergence of APC, governors have served almost as the conscience of the party. Any consideration for such an insensitive and unjust move for Ganduje to become the National Chairman of APC must be discarded,” he warned.
Lukman, a dogged fighter did not stop with those few words of objections but also went further to send a petition letter to the PGF chairman, Governor Uzodimma, to stress the consequences of their action on the peaceful coexistence of the party.
“While it is within the right of Progressive Governors, being a very critical power bloc within the APC, to endorse any candidate for the position of national chairman, to make such decision public, in whatever manner, is unfair to both President Tinubu and other leaders of the party who are not members of PGF, it is even unfair to Ganduje who is being endorsed.
“I have served PGF between August 2013 and February 2022 as Director General. I am fully conversant with the conventional approach toward managing consultations between PGF and the party. Whenever PGF is privileged to reach an agreement with the President, being the party leader, on matters affecting the party, PGF takes necessary steps to first meet with the NWC or at the least, the national chairman.
“Where such decisions require pronouncement by organs of the party, PGF uses its influence within the party to negotiate the buy-in of members of the relevant organs. That has been the tradition. As a member of NWC, I feel highly slighted that I am only encountering such endorsement in the media.
“Coming shortly after the resignation of Adamu and Omisore accused of undermining organs of the party, it raises questions as to whether PGF under your leadership shares the commitment to restore constitutional order in APC and return the party to its founding vision,” Lukman appealed.
Miffed by the speculations, APC North Central stakeholders have similarly kicked, warning that the leadership crisis will escalate if the progressive governors continue to push the planned imposition of Ganduje as National Chairman.
Party chieftain and member of the stakeholders’ forum, Dominic Alancha, had threatened in a chat with Daily Sun that the geopolitical zone will not fold their hands and watch the few governors take the position rightly zoned to North Central.
“I support Lukman’s position on Ganduje. The former Kano governor emerging National Chairman will be suicidal in our party. This party has a zoning arrangement. We put up a strong struggle for Speakership of the 10th National Assembly because it is rightfully ours but they denied us the position with the excuse that the zone is holding the position of our party’s national chairman and SGF.
“If that is the agreed zoning arrangement, why should they want to take the national chairmanship position from the North Central? President Tinubu needs to wade into this issue and apply caution to resolve it. He must intervene to ensure equal representation in sharing political positions in the country,” he noted.
Expressing further anger at the choice of Ganduje, Alancha said: “How can they bring Ganduje as Adamu’s replacement while Senator Bashiru from the same Osun State, is replacing Omisore as National Secretary? It was the same thing when Oshiomhole replaced John Odigie-Oyegun. Why should the case of North Central be different?
“Any attempt to actualise this arrangement will put the party in a serious mess and deeper crisis. We all know that Adamu is a saint where Ganduje is. We must avoid him. If he is dropped from the ministerial list, it is certainly not because he wants to become the party’s chairman.”
Disturbed by the back and front development of the issue, the NWC, in a statement almost practically denied Lukman and his struggle to extricate the ruling party from the clutches of the governors in proving that the situation in the party is devoid of any rancour.
National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, in a statement he issued at the weekend, noted: “recent events in APC, notably, the resignation of the National Chairman and National Secretary has led some to suggest that the party is in some kind of crisis.
“Incipient conversations and rumours regarding their possible successors have equally fuelled false narratives of deepening crisis in the party. Quite to the contrary, there is no crisis in the party. APC stands as one strong, dynamic, resilient, and progressive party.
“The resignations under reference only show the high level of institutional maturity and quality of its leadership that place the best interest of the party first and above personal egos and ambitions. The rapid and seamless succession, in acting capacities, to both offices exemplifies the cogency of its constitutional processes.
“Trending reports in sections of the media suggesting disharmony among members of NWC or between the NWC and other critical sections of the party’s leadership around possible successor to the office of National Chairman are purely speculative. All sections of the party’s college of leadership stand united in the quest for a more progressive party.
“While individual party leaders and members retain their right to express their personal thoughts and opinions, they do not represent the official position of the NWC or the party. The official position of the NWC on the subject of succession to any vacant offices of the NWC or any other subject will be communicated via the official channels of the NWC.”
What is incontrovertible however is that beyond the brewing crisis over who replaces Abdullahi Adamu as the substantive national chairman of the ruling party is also the fierce battle over which active bloc takes charge of the structure of the party.
Though the contest for the soul of the party is expectedly coming at the right time, the manner and urgency in which the gladiators diplomatically resolve the contending issues will put the ruling party in the right stead to consolidate and reposition the APC for more electoral victories.