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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The unfolding drama in the All Progressives Congress (APC) since it successfully prosecuted the 2023 general elections has confirmed the concerns in some quarters that the ruling party has earned for itself a place in history as a party known for using its national chairmen as sacrificial lambs.
Sitting precariously on a keg of gunpowder, the ruling party is currently living up to its tradition as a party lacking the competence to manage post-election victory leadership crises.
Clearly visible this year was a clear indication of a party enjoying the peace of the graveyard and a party with the culture of sacrificing its national chairmen and its National Working Committee (NWC), through brewing crises.
The leadership crisis currently rocking the ruling party may not have come as a surprise to many political watchers. From the days of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun to that of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker Committee, up until now under Abdullahi Adamu, managing leadership crisis has actually become an integral part of the ruling party.
Still very fresh in the minds of many students of history was the manifest and latent battle that tormented and consumed Odigie-Oyegun, costing him the national chairmanship position in 2018 when he sought re-election. He had found himself helplessly at the mercy of the presidency-backed Oshiomhole’s rampaging forces that not only wrested power from him but equally retired him after that year’s national convention.
Recall that at the climax of the plot to shove Oyegun aside, protesters had among other things faulted his failure to audit the party’s financial records and organise meetings of the relevant parties in accordance with the party’s constitution since it won the 2015 presidential election.
According to the leader of the protesting group, Peter Oyewole, “Since 2015, the budget of the APC has not been made public. Since 2015, the ruling party has not held a single meeting. These are enough to remove the National Chairman. We demand the removal of Oyegun now.
“We are also saying ‘enough is enough’ of the imposition of candidates at all levels by the Oyegun-led NWC, which is currently going on in the party. In any party where there is imposition, there cannot be fairness, and there cannot be equity. The imposition in the APC today is just rubbishing the anti-corruption war of President Muhammadu Buhari.”
The protesters, who also alleged that Oyegun was corrupt, insisted that he must be removed for peace to reign. “If Odigie-Oyegun is not removed within the next one month, the APC youth will picket the national secretariat and make it a ‘no go area’ to everybody. Staff, the officials and even the security personnel will all be chased out,” the protesters threatened.
Expectedly, the crises and demands that consumed Oyegun could not also spare his successor, Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole had battled all odds and fought doggedly to retain his seat as the ruling party’s boss, but escalating crises of unimaginable proportion consumed him just two years into his four-year tenure.
Before Oshiomhole was finally booted out disgracefully, the sins levelled against him ranged from high-handedness and relocation of the party’s secretariat to his private office at Aso Drive to the litigated reckless mismanagement of the party’s funds.
Claiming that Oshiomhole, through his leadership style, has disunited and disorganised the ruling party, protesters demanded his resignation, alleging that he was responsible for many irregularities going on in the APC then.
The convener of the protesting group, Yinusa Yusuf, claimed that before the 2019 general election, Oshiomhole had gone to all the states and interfered with the party’s affairs at that level, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which resulted in President Buhari losing the election in the FCT.”
“Nigerians, particularly stakeholders, are calling that Oshiomhole has now presented himself as an agent of destruction, and we will no longer tolerate it. We are making it very clear to the caucus and stakeholders of our party that we will leave the party for them if they fail to sack Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole must go because he has proven to be incompetent and lacks the ability to manage stakeholders,” they threatened.
However, in Oshiomhole’s words, he has no regret being disgraced out of office for taking up Mr. President’s responsibility to cleanse the APC, stressing, “I have no regrets whatsoever on the decision to sack the NWC, which of course, put an end to my chairmanship. No regrets. The average Nigerian wants strong leadership; they want things to be done differently.
“You don’t want a situation where a few people control our political destiny. In trying to democratise and return the party to the members, you have powerful forces; few in number, but they have access to resources, and will resist that.
“Whether anybody appreciates it or not, between President Buhari and myself, we agreed that we must return the APC to the APC members and that was why we introduced the direct primaries. We produced a membership register,” the former Edo governor defended himself.
Similarly, like his predecessors, Governor Mai Mala Buni was not also immuned or insulated from the ravaging force, as he was almost disgracefully booted out of office before the current administration came on board last year.
It may not, therefore, come as a surprise to many political watchers that visible signs of a gathering storm, which may likely consume the current leadership, have started manifesting, barely one year into the life of the current leadership. Already, tension has started building up such that thunder might likely strike twice at the same spot.
Several pundits, party members, chieftains, and ordinary Nigerians are becoming very much aware that the party’s leadership has been struggling to remain afloat and manage the deteriorating nasty relationship among members of the national leadership that have been constantly at daggers drawn among themselves.
Historically, the crack on the wall of the current leadership became noticeable before the party’s presidential primary, when the choice of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and then Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, over who becomes the anointed candidate of the party sharply divided the leadership.
While the National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, rooted for Lawan, claiming to be executing the instruction from the presidency, the rest members of the NWC openly resisted him and aligned themselves with the candidacy of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Interestingly, the seed of discord planted then later germinated in the handling of successive crises erupting within the party, resulting in the form of one discrediting attack or the other.
It was either Salihu Mohammed Lukman, the party’s zonal chairman North-West and member of the NWC was drawing battle lines against the National Chairman, Adamu, and the Secretary, Iyiola Omisore or there will be a conflict of interest among the NWC members over the choice of candidates for one elective position or the other.
Despite all efforts to paper the crack most recently, it continued to widen more and culminated in the endless controversy which trailed the way and manner the party’s leadership handled the micro-zoning of the positions in the 10th National Assembly.
Before then, there were palpable anxieties over the precarious position of the National Chairman due to increasing spates of allegations of high-handedness and reckless mismanagement of the party’s generated funds and running the party as garrison commander against him.
The North-West zonal chairman, Lukman, has been consistent in criticising particularly the national chairman, the national secretary and other ranking members of the party’s leadership, whom he described as musketeers.
He has petitioned both the immediate past president, Buhari and the incumbent, Tinubu. He has threatened legal action and to ground activities in the party, but his attacks have been resisted with equal fury and vengeance.
In retrospect, barely 15 days after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu the President-elect, Lukman had fired the first salvo, demanding Adamu’s resignation as a way of rectifying the Muslim-Muslim religious imbalance in the APC-led leadership in the country.
He equally demanded the resignation of the national secretary over what he described as leadership failure and inability to provide exemplary leadership in his state, Osun, as the highest-ranking leader of the party in the state.
Specifically requesting Adamu’s resignation, Lukman wrote: “With a National Chairman, Adamu, who is also a Muslim, it will be important that every necessary step is taken to inject a change of leadership for the party, so that a new national chairman who is a Christian takes over. Part of the advantages of this is that the national chairman could be retained in North-Central.
“Noting that the current national chairman has done an excellent job to manage a successful campaign to win the 2023 election with all the attendant challenges, there should be no difficulty in convincing Adamu to resign as national chairman to create an opportunity for a new national chairman of the APC who is a Christian to emerge.
Equally requesting Omisore’s resignation, Lukman, argued that apart from changing the national chairman, there was the need to also recognise that the case of Iyiola Omisore, national secretary, had become a source of stronger dispute in Osun State.
“Unfortunately, rather than serve as a unifying factor for the party’s leadership in Osun State, Omisore is more a divisive factor, which may have been responsible for why the APC lost the 2022 governorship election to a political mediocre, whose only qualification in politics may appear to be comic dancing skill.
“To save Osun State and bring it back to its old standard of national political reckoning, Omisore would need to resign as the national secretary of the APC, and a new unifying national secretary elected. Beyond Omisore, any member of the NWC of the party who is not a unifying leader in his/her state should be changed,” he fired. This is ostensibly the first missile that confirmed the crack in the party’s leadership.
However, while Adamu bluntly ignored the sporadic attacks from Lukman, Omisore, who could not take it in good faith, demanded a 48-hour period retraction, threatening legal action should Lukman fail to do so.
“Our client has informed us that your statement is not only false, misleading and without any factual basis, but malicious in all material respects. It is by the reckoning of our client, a deliberate attempt sponsored and/or designed to malign his image and his political stature as a leader of note in Osun State, the South-West geopolitical zone and Nigeria as a whole.
“It is important to reiterate that the spurious allegation made in your statement against our client is false in all ramifications. Our client has consequently directed us to request for a retraction of your libelous statement and publication and an apology in two major newspapers and several online news outlets not later than 48 hours of the delivery of this letter and also the payment of N500 Million as damages for malicious statement against our client.
“Take note that if you fail to heed the request of our client within 48 hours, we shall be constrained to proceed to the court of law against you for exemplary damages for injurious falsehood and malicious statement made of and concerning our client,” Omisore threatened through his lawyers.
However, ignoring his threat and even the one from the party’s legal adviser, and promising to meet them in court, the former Director General, APC’s Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), has continued his onslaught, daring his detractors to do their worst.
Refusing to buckle, Lukman, in his latest attack, again accused the party’s chairman of mismanaging N30 billion funds generated from the sale of nomination forms and running the party as a garrison commander.
According to him, “The sad reality is that the APC as constituted today is only a shadow of itself, with a national chairman that is highly unaccountable and running the affairs of the party more as a garrison commander. He relates with his colleagues in the NWC just like his appointees.
“In their name, he meets other leaders of the party and seeks to manipulate the party’s decisions to suit personal vested interests only known to him.”
Lukman equally frowned at Adamu’s financial dealings, claiming that APC was in contempt of its own rules led by a determined and decidedly conservative, reactionary, and undemocratic leadership.
“Beyond all these, it is also a clear case of reckless financial management of the party. With more than N30 Billion realised during the sale of forms for the 2023 elections, the National Chairman and the General Secretary have embarked on a spending extravaganza based on their discretionary decisions without any form of budget as required by the APC’s constitution.
“With the National Executive Committee (NEC) not meeting as required, they give no financial report to anyone, not even to the NWC. Having got the NWC around July 2022 to approve the suspension of Directors, they have proceeded to employ new Directors as well as more staff at the National Secretariat without recourse to the Establishment Committee, which is yet to be formed. All these have increased the running cost of the party without the approval of the NEC,” he accused the duo, making the future of the National Chairman and Secretary hang precariously in the balance.
Miffed by the party’s leadership quagmire, the former National Organising Secretary of the party, Emma Ibediro, who was also a victim of the power play within the party, argued that the current crisis rocking the party was externally induced just like the previous ones.
While advising the APC’s leadership, Ibediro narrated: “During our time, when the push came to shove, they said we were dissolved because of the internal crisis within the party. But, I can tell you that there were no internal crises in the APC then. The crisis then was externally induced by people who wanted to scatter the party, and maybe, take charge of the structure of the party.
“At every stage, there are people who make themselves difficult to lead. This is in their character. So, they will still play the same role. However, as far as this current leadership is concerned, the issue will be sorted out. The incumbent President is a consummate party man. At the appropriate time, he will intervene if the crisis continues. It may not come in the form of dissolution, but he will direct things well.
“President Tinubu is a man with a history of building a small organisation into a reputable and formidable party. I am very sure that when he settles down, he will look towards that direction. We all know that it is important that this party is well organised so that we don’t go into the next election as a scattered family.
“However, I want to encourage our people in the NWC to find a way to do things right. They should deploy internal resolution mechanisms to resolve the issues instead of going to the press,” he appealed.
As it stands now, the days of Adamu and Omisore seem to be numbered, just as their vindication and possibility of escaping the multiple landmines and conspiracies against them lie in the womb of time.
