From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Lingering crisis over the composition of the presidential campaign council, the intransigent posture of aggrieved presidential aspirants to the proposed reconciliation move by the party’s leadership, and the precarious situation facing the party’s national chairman, are loud evidences that the fate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is currently hanging in the balance few weeks to the stipulated commencement of political campaign for the 2023 elections.
Part of the challenges facing the ruling party is the handicap of the National Working Committee (NWC) following the expiration of the 90 days statutory power the National Executive Committee (NEC) transferred to it and more importantly, the handling of the unending backlash trailing the Muslim-Muslim joint presidential ticket.
The hostilities, which occurred in quick successions, have either defied solutions or appeared deliberately bent on scuttling the determination of the ruling party to consolidate on the electoral victory it secured in 2015 when it wrest power from then President Goodluck Jonathan.
The manner and frequency by which the obstacles are mounting dangerously for the APC close to the September 28 kick-off date for political campaigns and build-up to next year’s crucial presidential election, have become a serious source of concern to the party members, and every major and minor stakeholder.
But, regardless of the odds, they could not have been worse than the threat posed by the hazardous cold war between the party’s national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu and the presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on the future and fortune of the party, few weeks to the campaigns.
However, some of the major issues include how the party and its candidate could disassociate themselves from the hostile feelings of many Nigerians that the current APC-led government has failed and also how they intend to campaign and convince the Nigerian electorate to give the party another chance with their votes.
More importantly, what magic will the ruling party and its presidential candidate use to convince a multitude of the Christian electorate to key in and vote for the obnoxious single faith joint ticket? And what will the party do to purge the minds of Nigerians of the conviction that such an measure is not an orchestrated plan to Islamise the country?
“APC has really planted several land mines along its route to consolidate power, especially at the national level without putting any deliberate antidote towards detonating them. Where will the party’s leadership and stakeholders start to solve the myriad of odds confronting the party few weeks before the kick-off of the political campaign?
“I am not yet convinced of where the solution will come from, especially the love lost between our party’s national chairman and the presidential candidate. Will the Asiwaju camp and supporters, comprising serving governors, believe that Adamu, who did not support the Asiwaju ticket ab-initio, will not sabotage the electoral victory?
“Why has it become so difficult to harmonise the list of the presidential campaign council between the party’s leadership and the Tinubu camp weeks to the commencement of political campaign? Every member of this party should be genuinely concerned about these odds confronting our party and the dangers they posed on our quest to retain power beyond 2023,” a party chieftain quipped.
In reality, there may not be light at the end of the tunnel in the party’s preparations to resume campaigns as a united family, especially as the planned peace moves by the party’s leadership are already facing challenges even before it started, with many of the aggrieved presidential aspirants showing indifference towards the reconciliation meeting.
Miffed by the deafening silence of the presidential aspirants and their aloofness since the conclusion of the party primary, the APC leadership had resolved to pacify, reunite and appease the aspirants towards ensuring a united approach to next year’s general elections.
But the moves may have hit the rock even before execution as most of the aggrieved aspirants have outrightly vowed never to be part of the reconciliation plans, making it fall like a pack of cards despite all the entreaties the party’s leadership made to them to be part of the arrangement.
And apart from former Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba already pursuing his case in the court, others like the former minister of transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, may have completely excused himself from the proposed reconciliation meeting.
While reacting to the proposed peace meeting, a source close to him had dismissed the possibility of Amaechi appearing for the meeting, lamenting that no chieftain of the party had previously made any attempt to pacify him.
He hinged Amaechi’s anger on the continued unholy alliance between some leaders of the ruling party and the governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, describing it as a spit on his personality as a leader of the party in Rivers State.
“How do you want Amaechi to freely be part of such a peace parley when some leaders of the party have continued to hold meetings with Wike both in Nigeria and in Europe? Did it show any iota of respect for a man who sacrificed so much to build the APC?
“They have even made some outlandish promises to Wike. So, why do they still want Amaechi to be part of such a reconciliation meeting? Anyway, he has not yet been approached as I talk to you now for him to decide whether he wants to participate in such a meeting or not but I can categorically tell you that the leadership of the party went too far to spit at him,” Amaechi’s confidant told the Daily Sun.
With the reconciliation moves almost crumbling even before they commenced, another challenge is how the party’s leadership could take decisions on certain issues of grave concerns within the purview of NEC following the expiration of the 90 days period NEC donated its power to the leadership.
Acknowledging stripping NWC of the statutory powers NEC conferred on it, a member of the party’s leadership told Daily Sun that the NWC no longer takes decisions outside its scope of authority.
His words: “We are aware that the power NEC gave to the NWC has elapsed after the expiration of the 90 days. And that is why NWC is no longer taking any substantive decision outside its scope and limit. NWC members have tried to restrict themselves from taking decisions within its mandate.
“They are mindful of the fact that some decisions are now a no-go area for the NWC. They are also aware of the fact that they cannot take any decision that will expose the party and give the opposition any undue legal advantage against the APC. The reality on ground is that if they don’t do so, anybody that drags our party to the court will certainly be to our detriment.
“Already, we are desperate to hold NEC meeting unfailingly this month. We are also tentatively planning toward this month’s end for the NEC meeting. The meeting has become very important to either extend the absolute powers NEC ceded to the NWC or retain and exercise its statutory powers. However, I cannot give you a definite date for the meeting because it is highly dependent on the schedule and availability of Mr President,” he revealed.
Apprehensive of what might be the consequences of continuing with such arrangements, our source argued that: “if you ask me, NEC doesn’t need to renew the powers given to the NWC. NEC should retain its powers and allow the NWC to limit its powers. It is dereliction of duty for NEC to even donate its powers to the NWC. We must be painstaking in all we do.”
This situation of anomie in the leadership of the ruling party is a pointer to the looming danger confronting the APC very close to the kick-off of the campaign.
Perhaps, a major odd facing the party is how to apply diplomacy in managing the multiple baggages of its presidential candidate, Asiwaju.
Though some may argue he has some advantages over other presidential candidates, the realities on ground show that the odds against the APC presidential candidate are many and difficult to surmount. Apart from what many may have remarked as an unfavourable perception index, there are other internal forces and hostilities against him within the ruling party.
From what many perceive as the APC candidate’s apparent health challenge to the much-litigated authenticity of his academic credentials, drug-related scam, and his state of origin, the myriads of baggage are very much daunting.
In fact, it was that bad that shortly after his emergence as the presidential candidate, a message trending like a wildfire, stressed that; “the hardest thing to do is to manage the presidential candidate of the APC ”
On the whole, the challenges ahead of the APC presidential candidate include but not limited to religion, tribe and perception that he cannot account for his wealth.
But if all these challenges are possibly surmountable, the strong negative perception of Nigerians against the government policies and programmes, may pose a greater challenge to the party and its presidential candidate.
The questions are -what will the party campaign with; will its presidential candidate disassociate itself from the perceived failure of this administration in several sectors, mismanagement of the economy or nepotic tendencies in his appointments?
Capturing the situation, in his own words, APC National Vice Chairman (North West), Salihu Moh Lukman, recently noted that: “the claim is that APC government has mismanaged the economy, divided Nigerians and created insecurity. Part of the argument is that Nigeria is now the ‘poverty capital of the world’.
“The so-called poor performance of the APC-led government of President Buhari contrasts with so-called ‘achievements’ of 16 years of PDP between 1999 and 2015. Many PDP leaders and their supporters have even claimed that if PDP failed to win the 2023 election, Nigeria will collapse,” he argued.
Apart from the odds against the APC is the speculated possibility that President Buhari, may not eschew sentiment and throw all his weight behind Asiwaju, by way of deploying resources and the needed manpower to ensure he emerges victorious in next year’s presidential poll.
Some stakeholders in APC initially dismissed the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi as a social media president but the reality on ground today is that the ruling party will have to go the extra mile to counter the silent ballot box revolution from the Nigerian youths angling for himt.
Interestingly, clarifying how the ruling party intends to approach the campaign, the duo of Imo State governor, Hope Uzodimma and spokesperson of the campaign council, Festus Keyamo, promised that it will be issue-based, refusing to be drawn into the controversy of enumerating how the touted landmark achievements of the administration will guarantee the party’s re-election.
According to Keyamo; “we will run a clean campaign. We will not use abusive words on our opponents and their spokespersons. We will refrain from calling those who Nigerians think and say they look stupid with their gaffs as such. Abuses on a campaign trail are a sign of frustration. We will stick to the issues.”
In his reaction, Governor Uzodinma, said: “It’s not a pre-determined arrangement. I’m confident that APC has done so well to the extent that they can win all the states in Nigeria but we still need to engage the people and when the campaign starts this month, we have to go and market our product.
“By the time we finish our marketing, then we will carry out an opinion poll that will give us an idea of how many states we will win proper because we are talking about human beings, and in this business, one day can change a lot of things,” Governor Uzodinma said.
Regardless of the side of the coin, what is incontrovertible is that the ruling party still faces an uphill task of uniting the gladiators ahead of the kick-off of the campaign.