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•Despite reconciliation efforts, aggrieved aspirants insist crisis not yet over in states
By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Internal cohesion remains a mirage for the All Progressives Congress (APC). Weeks after the primaries, the party still cannot close ranks. Despite the administrative pageantry of setting up national screening, appeal, and reconciliation committees, the APC is wrestling with deep-seated internal fragmentation. The aftermath of the legislative and governorship primaries has made it clear that no standard reconciliation template can paper over the structural fractures across key states. Aggrieved aspirants, convinced the process robbed them, are rejecting every peace option the National Reconciliation Committees have tabled, including offer of alternative political concessions, selective re-runs where irregularities are undeniable or forward-looking promises of federal appointments and board slots. Until they bend, the APC remains a house at war with itself.
Volatile States
Several state chapters remain locked in deep structural crises. The battle lines are drawn not by ideology, but by candidate imposition, the controversial use of consensus arrangements, and existential struggles for control of party structures ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Rivers
Rivers State is currently one of the most volatile political battlefields in the country. The APC chapter is fractured by the proxy war between FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and Governor Siminalayi Fubara. The primaries bypassed Fubara’s camp, favouring figures aligned with Wike. Because the national leadership has leaned heavily toward Wike’s structure to secure the state for 2027, the local party is hostile to anyone outside that faction. “When one camp must erase the other to survive, that is not reconciliation. That is surrender.
“True reconciliation is structurally impossible when one camp requires the total political erasure of the other,” APC stakeholders in Rivers declared.
Ogun
In Ogun, tension remains high over the widening rift between Governor Dapo Abiodun and his predecessor, Senator Gbenga Daniel. The crisis boils down to a clash over process and succession. Abiodun’s camp favours tightly controlled consensus to ensure a seamless transition. The opposing camp feels short-changed, insisting the grassroots should decide. “Consensus should be agreement, not imposition from Government House,” a member of Gbenga Daniel camp who did not want his name in print said. With disputed rules of engagement, every attempt to broker peace has hit a brick wall.
Effort to get the Ogun State spokesperson of the APC, Nuberu Adesanya Olufemi, to comment on the on-going reconciliation efforts proved abortive. He ignored several phone calls put through to him as well as Whatsapp messages.
Lagos
Despite being the President’s home stat, Lagos is unsettled especially in Alimosho. Historically, Alimosho has been the “powerhouse” of Lagos politics due to its massive voting population, but it has also become a perennial battleground for internal party supremacy.
During a recent stakeholders’ meeting held at the party’s secretariat at Acme Road, what was supposed to be a peace settlement turned violent, as the state chairman, Hon C.O Ojelabi, narrowly escaped mob action. Angry party members accused him of selling the people’s mandate. Protesters cite “allegations of imposition and manipulation, accusing party officials of sidelining popular candidates”. Placards read: “Ojelabi Must Go”. “Ojelabi, Mr Voter’s Apathy”.
The party has, however, issued a rebuttal: “The party chairman was neither molested nor harassed at any point during the incident. Furthermore, the Chairman was not present at the APC Secretariat at the time the event occurred.”
The dramatic escalation at the Acme Road secretariat involving Hon. Cornelius Ojelabi underscores a deepening crisis of confidence.
The chaotic escape of the state chairman shows that standard party pacification mechanisms are failing to hold the line. For Lagos, the ultimate stronghold and home base of the presidency, to show such highly visible, volatile fractures at the secretariat is a major vulnerability. If the party cannot guarantee basic order during an internal peace settlement, it signals to opposition elements that the frontline structure is deeply stressed.
Nevertheless, former Chairman of the state chapter of the party, Chief Henry Ajomale, expressed optimism that all disputes would be amicably resolved by the reconciliation committee. “Every dispute will be resolved by the Appeal and Reconciliation Committee and keep all aggrieved members within the party.
There is enough time for reconciliation and to settle all the rifts. The election will hold in January, and we are in May. Within that period, we will resolve and settle all aggrieved members,” he told Sunday Sun in a telephone chat.
Kwara
The situation in Kwara presents a political irony. Following the emergence of Speaker Salihu Danl as the governorship candidate, another Otoge revolution is threatening with stakeholders accusing Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq of candidate imposition. APC stakeholders warned “the state cannot afford to go back to Egypt” and referenced the 2019 “Otoge Revolution” that liberated Kwara from godfatherism. Integrity Group warned the party “risks losing its grip on the state in 2027” if discontent continues.
Offa LGA members protested: “They didn’t allow us to vote… They are imposing candidates on us”.
Another APC chieftain declared outright: “There is no single power centre that can impose consensus without resistance”.
For aggrieved party supporters to weaponise the same Otoge slogan against the sitting establishment is a massive warning sign. The 2019 uprising proved that Kwara electorate and party faithful know exactly how to organise when they feel cut out of the process. When the grassroots feel they no longer have a say, the transition from boardroom dialogue to open defiance happens incredibly fast.
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Benue
In Benue, the party is a pressure cooker of resentment after disputed governorship and legislative primaries. High-profile aspirants, including Dr Jeffrey Kuraun, accuse the leadership of frustrating their right to a fair hearing. “Reconciliation cannot occur where there is denial of due process,” an aggrieved aspirant in Benue insisted. He alleged that the Primary Election Appeal Committees made themselves unreachable, refusing to sit or provide channels to file petitions. When members feel shut out of both the ballot and the internal justice system, they abandon the peace table for the courts or rival parties.
Nasarawa
In Nasarawa State, the internal machinery is unravelling after a governorship primary that favoured Governor Abdullahi Sule’s candidate, Senator Ahmed Wadada. The fallout triggered resignations and defections. The exit of former Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu, who quit his ward membership in Lafia, proves the elite consensus model is failing. “You don’t build a party by ignoring stakeholders who built it. When reward ignores rank, loyalty leaves,” a party chieftain said after Adamu’s resignation. When the reward system ignores high-ranking stakeholders in favour of executive imposition, they take their structures elsewhere instead of waiting for empty promises.
Gombe and Kano
Gombe and Kano share similar experience. In Gombe, the defection of former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Ali Pantami to the PDP exposed deep fractures. In Kano, legislative aspirants like Abdulmajid Isa Umar Mai Rigar Fata have exited the party. Both states suffer from what analysts call “electoral predetermined outcomes.” When mobilisers believe tickets were written in hotel rooms long before primaries, the legitimacy of local leadership collapses. Defection becomes more logical than reconciliation.
Across these states, the crisis persists because the APC National Working Committee (NWC) is using reconciliation to enforce compliance with executive decisions, not to negotiate fair compromise. Until the party addresses the systemic manipulation of delegate lists and abuse of consensus, these chapters will remain political tinderboxes.
The APC National Reconciliation Committee is trapped in a profound political dilemma. After highly contentious national and legislative primaries, party leadership is discovering that the standard tools of pacification — appeals to loyalty, backroom deals, and promises of future patronage — are failing. The committee’s predicament is not for lack of effort, but for structural contradictions that make clean resolution nearly impossible. Once primaries conclude, result sheets are signed, and names are submitted to INEC, the window for structural adjustments shuts tight. The committee cannot rewrite the ballot without triggering legal crisis.
The power balance dilemma
In states where the crisis stems from executive imposition, the committee cannot overrule a sitting governor without destabilising the party’s financial and logistical backbone. The governor is the anchor. Chastise him, and the structure collapses.
Divisions over candidate emergence have created a deadlock. Incumbent structures defend consensus and indirect primaries as tools for stability and loyalty. Marginalised factions insist only direct primaries reflect the grassroots will. Because the committee is tasked with settling fallout, not fixing rules, it is treating symptoms while the disease remains. In past cycles, the party relied on the gravity of incumbency to keep people in. That calculus has changed. High-profile exits of stakeholders and former federal officials prove politicians will walk away if structurally alienated. If the committee compromises too much with rebels, it undermines official candidates and rewards rebellion. If it stays rigid, it risks an exodus of mobilisers and a hollowed-out structure.
True reconciliation requires concessions, but political tickets cannot be shared. The APC is trying to resolve an existential battle for survival with the language of family disputes. Until it addresses the integrity of internal democracy before ballots are cast, reconciliation will feel like rebuilding a house while the foundation shifts.
Factors stalling reconciliation efforts
Appeal, screening, and reconciliation committees remain critical for managing frictions and enforcing discipline. But setting up a committee is rarely the end of a crisis. More often, it is formal acknowledgment of complexity. Reconciliation requires compromise, but heavy reliance on the consensus model leaves no room for it. Tickets allegedly handed down through backroom deals have disenfranchised aspirants. For them, reconciliation means political erasure. With processes seen as biased toward incumbents, committees are viewed as pacifiers, not arbiters. “We’ve heard board appointment next cycle before. After the election, the phone stops ringing,” an aggrieved aspirant told Sunday Sun in a cynical tone.
Legal hurdles make party-switching complex, so aggrieved heavyweights stay and fight from within. Instead of defecting, they are weighing the notion of pursuing high-stakes legal battles to overturn primaries or fund parallel structures. You cannot reconcile with a faction trying to void your ticket in court.
A major roadblock is the clash between governors and state executives who demand total ticket control, and federal appointees/NASS members who claim backing from the national secretariat to bypass local hierarchies. The committee cannot bridge this gap because neither side will cede machinery. The Electoral Act has pulled the 2027 elections into Q1, compressing timelines. The fight for legislative and state tickets is now a fight for immediate political survival. Aspirants who lost know they will be side-lined from the next cycle’s governance and campaign architecture. When careers are on the line, appeals to loyalty carry little weight.
In previous cycles, leadership stalled crises by promising ministerial slots, board appointments, or lucrative state positions. Now, committees preach collective interest and offer vague future inclusion. For politicians who invested heavily in governorship, senatorial, or federal constituency tickets, there is no runner-up prize. When factions feel locked out, peace becomes an expensive luxury.
The most volatile fault lines pit sitting governors against predecessors, often sitting senators. These are not ideological battles; they are wars for control of state party machinery. A committee can broker a truce, but it cannot resolve who controls the structure before elections.
Cynicism from broken promises
From the Buni-led caretaker era to recent panels, a cynical precedent has set in. Aggrieved members saw promises to losing factions shelved once elections were won. Committees are now viewed as optics management tools to suppress dissent until defection or litigation expires. When committees paper over structural disagreements without addressing transparency, peace is cosmetic. Until the APC builds institutionalised mechanisms for fair competition, internal democracy, and genuine power-sharing, peace will remain an elusive concept, fiercely chased but rarely captured. With consolation prizes shrinking and past promises unfulfilled, sceptical politicians will no longer step down for vague patronage.
The challenge before national leadership is to pull state chapters back from silent crises and prevent aggrieved members from pretending to stay in the party while working against it through anti-party activities in the general elections.
Presidential intervention
In these circumstances, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu holds a double-edged sword. While his intervention carries immense political weight, it also exposes the delicate balance he must maintain between preserving his structural alliances and enforcing genuine party peace.
The Villa’s primary strategy for managing post-primary fallout has been an aggressive push for consensus. Before and during the nationwide primaries, the President explicitly advocated for consensus-building to “reduce rancour and internal divisions.”
From a presidential standpoint, consensus minimises public legal battles, stabilises state chapters, and presents a united front ahead of the general election cycle. But disputes arose when aspirants perceived state-level consensus not as mutual agreement, but as executive fiat dictated by sitting governors or powerful interests. In states where heavyweights feel their grassroots popularity was bypassed under the guise of consensus, the President’s endorsement of this method deepens resentment.
Traditionally, the President must back his governors. They are, after all, the chief mobilisers, financial engines, and structural anchors of the party in their states. Yet the President is cautious about stepping into crises in places like Ogun or Benue and overruling a governor’s preferred transition plan to appease aggrieved factions. Doing so risks alienating a crucial executive ally.
But the reality is stark: the President cannot rewrite INEC candidate lists already submitted without triggering severe legal and constitutional crises under the Electoral Act. Therefore, presidential intervention largely relies on forward-looking promises — federal appointments, board memberships, or assurances of inclusion in the next governance cycle. While this satisfies some career politicians, it has failed to appease local structures that feel they have lost their primary base of power. The true test of President Tinubu’s leadership in this crisis is whether his intervention moves past short-term fire-fighting. Managing a coalition of powerful, ambitious regional leaders requires more than appeals to party loyalty. Until the presidency establishes a mechanism that guarantees internal democratic equity before the ballot box is compromised, even the highest level of presidential intervention will only paper over cracks that remain fundamentally structural.
