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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The crisis currently bedeviling the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will not certainly come to many as a big surprise. It has actually become a tradition in the ruling party to be engulfed in one form of crisis or the other after presidential electoral victory.
Shortly after it wrest power from the incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 presidential election, hell was let loose when Bukola Saraki, emerged the Senate President against the planned arrangement of the party.
Saraki’s emergence did not only divide the party along many considerations but also created a gulf between the National Assembly and the executive under the same political party that lasted throughout President Muhammadu Buhari’s first tenure.
Instead of enjoying the success of winning the incumbent, the PDP-led government from 16 years monopoly, several other post-victory misunderstandings resulted in many party’s stalwarts like Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Saraki among many others dumping the ruling party for the PDP where they contested the 2019 general election.
The same scenario played out again after the ruling APC retained the presidential seat in 2019 when all manner of internal leadership wrangling cost the then National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his National Working Committee (NWC) members their seats.
Today, thunder is about to strike the third time after the ruling party’s candidate, BolaTinubu emerged the President-elect after the February 25 presidential poll. Members of the national leadership of the party are at daggers drawn with one another instead of celebrating the hard-earned victory in the presidential election.
In fact, the current leadership crisis seems to be fiercer than the previous ones witnessed since the party came to power in 2015 because of the involvement of two heavyweights squaring up against each other.
Shortly after the emergence of the ruling party, the peace of the graveyard festering within the party escalated with North West Zonal Chairman, Salihu Moh Lukman, and National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, declaring war against each other.
Lukman, who drew the first blood, had levied sundry allegations on both the National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu and the chief scribe, Omisore, demanding their immediate resignation from the party.
He had requested Adamu’s resignation to correct the insensitivity and imbalance of Muslim-Muslim joint presidential ticket the party adopted, appealing for a Christian to head the party.
And equally calling for the resignation of the party’s chief scribe, Omisore, Lukman, accused him of mismanagement of the campaign fund from the party during the Osun State governorship election last year and more worrisome, for becoming a source of divisive factor, and stronger dispute in Osun State.
“Also, learning from PDP’s mistake of insensitivity whereby the inability to align the position of the leadership of the party with the standard bearer of the party for the 2023 presidential race, which became a source of deep-seated animosity among party leaders, it is important that APC, even before May 29, 2023 when Asiwaju will be sworn in as President of Nigeria, take every step to rectify any situation that may be used to continue divisive campaigns and propaganda against the APC and its control of Federal Government.
“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 advantage of this is that the National Chairman could be retained in North-Central.
“The current National Chairman has done an excellent job to manage a successful campaign to win the 2023 election with all the attendant challenges, but there should be no difficulty in convincing him to resign to create opportunity for a Christian to be the new National Chairman of APC to emerge,” Lukman demanded.
As for Omisore, Lukman, the former Director General of APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), demanded that; “apart from changing the National Chairman, there is the need to also recognise that the case of Omisore has become a source of stronger dispute in Osun State.
“Unfortunately, rather than serving as a unifying factor for the party leadership in Osun State, Omisore is more a divisive factor, which may have been responsible for why APC lost the 2022 governorship election to a political mediocre whose only qualification in politics may appear to be his 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 National Secretary of APC, and a new unifying National Secretary elected,” he demanded
In what has become an unending drama playing out in the leadership of the ruling party, Omisore had issued a 48-hour retraction ultimatum to Lukman to apologise, and pay him N500 million compensation or risk instituting legal action.
In the notification letter written by Omisore’s solicitors, Lords and Temple and signed by Oyewole, SAN., FCArb, the chief scribe had requested from Lukman a retraction, an apology, and payment of damages for the libelous statement made of and concerning him in his press release.
“It is clear beyond doubt that your statement and publication was a political ploy with the intent to impugn the reputation and integrity of our client and unjustifiably and unwarrantedly assassinate his character in the eyes of right-thinking members of the public.
“Our client has consequently directed us to request for a retraction of your libelous statement and publication and an apology to be published 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 the sum N500 million as damages for malicious statement against our client.
“Take Notice that if you fail to heed the request of our client within 48 hours of the receipt of this letter, 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’s solicitors had demanded from Lukman.
But drawing a battle line, Lukman did not only indicate readiness to unleash every legal weapon on Omisore in the court of law, but also declared that Omisore does not deserve any apology from him.
In his reply to the legal threats from Omisore, Lukman did not only declare readiness to meet him in the court of law but also escalated many other administrative inefficiencies involving both Adamu and Omisore, gradually stagnating and killing the ruling party.
Insisting that Omisore does not deserve any apology as he requested in the 48-hour retraction ultimatum threat from him, Lukman noted that he would have opted for alternative resolution mechanisms to sort out the party’s leadership but the fact that the National chairman, Adamu and Omisore have frozen the National Executive Committee (NEC) and National Caucus for over one year now made it impossible.
In a statement he issued, Lukman declared that; “since Omisore’s response to the request for accountability is to threaten legal action, I have also instructed my lawyers to respond appropriately to his legal threat.”
And the reply from his solicitors, Lexhill City Attorneys, in a letter signed by Martins Joseph Esq, explicitly told Omisore to meet them in court.
“Therefore, our client believes that your client does not deserve any apology for the statement as it is within the constitutional right as a member to demand accountability from a national officer of the APC, which was built on the promise of accountability,” the letter read.
Reacting further in his statement, Lukman wrote: “However, as a committed party member I insist that the challenges facing us as a party and as a nation are broadly political and limiting our actions that may only distract us from initiating the right responses to resolve the challenge of facilitating negotiations for inclusive government under the leadership of Bola Tinubu as President of Nigeria,” he quipped.
On why certain factors made exploring alternative resolution mechanisms an impossibility, Lukman wrote; “I want to restate that being leaders of the party, we are obligated to facilitate negotiations through our structures, namely NEC and National Caucus. Unfortunately, as things are, these structures have been frozen by our inactions as members of the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Adamu and Omisore.
“No meetings of these structures have taken place for almost one year that we came in. Inability to make these structures functional will weaken the capacity to regulate the conduct of party leaders and we risk creating a situation whereby challenges of inclusivity will be further compounded in the country.
“Already, individual Senators-elect and House of Representative members-elect have begun to aspire to positions of the Senate President and Speaker of Reps in a very insensitive and reckless manner.
“May I once again remind all of us, both as leaders and APC members, that APC is a product of sacrifices and more than ever before the challenges we face today calls for sacrifice and is resorting to acts of intimidation to perhaps manipulate processes of appointment into the Asiwaju-led Federal Government,” he noted.
Harping more on the need for accountability, Lukman wrote; “What makes democracy attractive is the requirement for accountability and Omisore must be held accountable. We need to have accountable leaders to the process of negotiations to be facilitated by the party.
“Finally, after 24 years of interrupted democracy, we must not shy away from initiatives that will strengthen internal contest within our party, APC. Part of the big challenge of Nigeria’s democracy is that internal contest is being destroyed. As a result, we produced situations where some leaders act as tyrants.
“Anyone who expresses views that are not in harmony with thinking of some leaders is condemned. This attitude is responsible for the destruction of PDP as a party and is gradually being entrenched in our party. There should be conscious effort to call these leaders to order!” Lukman warned.
The last may not have been heard with the two gladiators poised for war. The die therefore seems to be cast on who should blink first in the face-off in what might appear as a long facilitating legal battle to be witnessed by two leaders of the party.
Unfortunately, unless quick intervention comes from the President-elect, Asiwaju, who happens to be very close and wield serious influence on both gladiators, there are indications that the risk will not only last long but also produce many casualties.
Certainly, internal resolution looks an impossibility as members of the current leadership of the ruling party have been a composition of strange bed fellows from inception. The first pronounced crack noticed in the leadership was in the choice of the aspirant to be anointed as the presidential candidate of the party. Other NWC members had declared war against the national chairman for opting for the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, claiming that the instruction came from the presidency.
Ever since then, the peace within the party’s leadership has been that of the graveyard. The misunderstanding was yet to be rested when the issue of constituting the members of the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) widened the crack in the party.
Considering the enormous influence members of the APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) wield in the party, there may not be light at the end of the tunnel for the party especially by the time the body is constituted.
“Don’t expect peace to return to the leadership of the party soon. Tinubu and his team, from all indications, won’t want Adamu to continue as the national chairman, considering the role he played on the eve of the presidential primary. He never supported Tinubu’s emergence as candidate of the party.
“There will be more crisis because so many forces will clash in the balance of power in the nearest future. Tinubu and the presidency cabal on one side, the governors under the auspices of PGF on another and the party’s leadership fighting to remain afloat.
“You should remember that there has always been crisis in the party since the formation. It is even going to be worse under Tinubu who will have a keen interest in the party unlike President Buhari. Tinubu is one man who will do everything to have full grip of the party. I foresee a situation where there will be no peace in the party’s fold until Adamu and some of his members are consumed,” a member of the NWC told Daily Sun in confidence.
The advice from Lukman, which also came in the form of warning to the party, its leaders, and supporters could be the healing balm.
“Both as party leaders and Nigerians, we must wake up to the reality that negotiation to form the next APC government under the leadership of Bola Tinubu must depart from the conventional approach of allowing leaders to emerge based on individual aspirations.
“We cannot risk any further complication of entrenchment of the existing religiously lopsided Muslim-Muslim identity of Tinubu and Shettima. No legal threat should distract us from addressing this challenge”, he warned.
