Turbulence foretold

It is doubtful that many, if indeed any at all, within the fold of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will give credit to Professor Maurice Iwu for the idea behind the formation of the party. But it was his idea.

In the wake of the 2007 general election, which was won by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), opposition parties, led by the Action Congress, raised no small dust about the outcome of the election. The accusation was that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), headed by Iwu, aided the victory of the ruling party. Twenty-five political parties contested the election, all with their respective presidential candidates. That is to say, 24 presidential candidates ran against the incumbent President and his party. Of the 24 opposition parties, no fewer than 18 of them were just there, to put it diplomatically.

Iwu was ready as chairman of the election management body to contend with excoriation from the opposition parties that lost the election. However, he has never been the type that goes away without telling you his mind. He pointedly told the opposition parties that the gap between the ruling PDP and the rest of them, standing alone, was too pronounced in terms of size, resource base, spread and strength, that unless there was a change in that configuration, the PDP would continue to triumph over them at the polls, no matter how many times elections were held. He added in a characteristic blunt manner, that calling the chairman of the election management body names was not the solution to the problem he had presented before the parties. As should be expected, that view became a source of further disparagement of the man in some political quarters.

Four year later, in 2011, the parties lined out once more for another general election. There were 19 presidential candidates this time, 18 opposition candidates against another incumbent PDP candidate. Sadly, the 2011 election turned out to be the most violent election in the annals of elections in Nigeria. Once more, the opposition parties with their troupe of presidential candidates were trounced by the incumbent PDP. The margin of victory was even wider. Iwu was no longer chairman of INEC, but that did not change anything. The behemoth PDP prevailed again.

Two years down the line, with the 2015 elections and the prospect of another round of defeat in view, those who riled Iwu and his counsel in 2007 had a re-think. The opposition parties came to terms with the reality that, standing alone, they could never match the PDP. They forged an alliance. Thus was the All Progressives Congress born, an agglomeration of disparate entities that had deluded themselves for a long time that they could, on their own, win a national election.

Unfortunately, even as APC crystalized as a welcome challenge to the PDP, the entity that emerged was more of a conurbation of wayward estates than a tightly agglutinated union with definite guiding principles. There was little effort to knit a party bound in principles, order and equity.

The root of the crisis in APC can easily be traced to its very beginning. The party came into being with a single purpose: to contend with and wrest power from the PDP. No more, no less. Once that purpose was achieved, perhaps, faster than was imagined, going forward was bound to present problems. Managing quick wealth has never been easy.

Contrary to what some of the contending interests in the party will want the public to believe, the crisis at hand in APC is not all about the shenanigans of Mai Mala Buni, the caretaker chairman of the party. Buni is just a manifestation of a massive device sans a hub. What the party is going through is turbulence foretold.

Unfortunately, some of the early opportunities that the party had to chart a better course for itself were frittered away on the altar of ego and unhelpful machismo. Dr. Arthur Nwankwo, the political activist and intellectual, was not a member of APC. The day after APC ousted Chief John Oyegun as its national chairman, Nwankwo expressed surprise in a personal conversation. His view was that Chief Oyegun was a very brilliant, experienced and decent technocrat and APC stood to benefit from his integrity and wisdom. He wondered why any serious party would oust Oyegun and replace him with Adams Oshiomhole. That was his opinion. APC knew better.

Nasir el-Rufai’s account of the chaos that is the APC leadership is frightening. The Kaduna State governor, not known for pulling punches, accused Buni of virtually getting APC discombobulated. Among the sins of the caretaker chairman, he said, was hiding vital information on an interim order restraining the party from conducting its convention slated for March 26, 2022. That, el-Rufai said, was an equivalent of “hiding a nuclear weapon from the party,” ostensibly with the intent to use it at a most inauspicious time.

The March 6, 2022, coup d’état that supposedly ousted Buni may not be out of character with the APC, but what really will it change? Interestingly, while el-Rufai was declaring with definite defiance that Buni would never return to the seat of party chairman again, Niger State governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, who was mandated to take over by the governors who claimed to have dispatched of Buni, was more restrained in his own disposition. Bello reportedly maintained that he was only acting in Buni’s stead, as the caretaker chairman was indisposed. The truth will be known when Buni re-surfaces today, as expected.

The magnitude of the chaos in the ruling party appears far more confounding than many can imagine. Buni may have his ways and may have been mesmerizing the party in the last two years, still, it is shocking to learn from the governors who are supposed to be his colleagues that even they do not have the faintest idea where the ship carrying them is headed. If 19 governors of APC say they do not understand what is going on in their party, the country should worry about the direction the ruling party is taking it.

As if the situation is not bad enough, Ondo State governor, the straight-talking Rotimi Akeredolu, came forth with an information with very worrisome import. According to Akeredolu, there are shady characters among the corps of governors of APC. The Ondo governor was obviously riled at Buni’s administrative misdeeds as party chairman. But more than that, he disapproved of the existence of what he called a crop of “Yahoo Yahoo” (fraudulent) governors in APC, who he alleged were conniving with Buni to run the ship of the party aground.

A deductive interpretation of Gov. Akeredolu’s assertion is necessary here. First, there are “Yahoo Yahoo” governors in APC. Two, the chairman of APC is working in cahoots with these charlatans. If we go by the doctrine of show me your friends, what does that make Buni? Now, Buni has been at the helm at the APC for almost two years, chosen by the party following the ouster of Oshiomhole. If a party chooses as its leader and its face a man who is a “Yahoo Yahoo” person, either by association or of his own right, what does that make the party? This is how dangerous matters have turned in APC.

Every Nigerian ought to be worried about the goings-on in APC. This, after all, is the ruling party in the country, the dominant makers of the laws of the land and the controllers of our common patrimony or whatever remains of it.