APC: A Party at War with Itself

Magnus Onyibe warns that the schism in the presidency which has now spread to the ruling All Progressives Congress, is threatening the party’s chances of retaining the power it worked so hard to win in 2015a

The internal strife that has recently bedeviled Aso Rock villa is based on the belief that there are numerous pockets of power in the presidency.

By tugging at each other’s throats, the different power blocks in the seat of power are believed to be working at cross purposes and for selfish interests which does not augur well for effective governance.

The recent incidents of the security agencies that have direct reporting lines to president Muhamadu Buhari being at daggers drawn, affirms that there is trouble in Aso Rock Villa.

More specifically, the fact that the Directorate of State Services, DSS, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC,National Intelligence Agency, NIA, are investigating each other and presenting damning reports against one another to both mr president and the National Assembly, NASS is very disturbing.

The frosty relationship between the security agencies clearly reflects the wise crack a “house divided can not stand”.

Another fall out of the Aso Rock Villa ‘internecine war’ is the much awaited confirmation of Ibrahim Magu as the substantive chairman of the EFCC which is still in abeyance , just as the ownership of N25b found in Foreshore Towers, ikoyi, lagos( NIA ‘safe house’) is yet to be established and the dismissal of the pair of Secretary to federal Govt, Babachir Lawal and Directot General of NIA, Dele Oke.

Worryingly, the foregoing are immutable evidence of a highly fractured national security architecture and a troubled presidency.

Unsurprisingly, the apparent fiasco in the seat of power is of dire concern to watchers of politics in Nigeria who owing to the sordid development are horrified and aghast.

And obviously,it is also a vulnerability which the opposition is capitalizing on.

Conventionally, all state security agencies are supposed to be pulling resources (men and materials) together towards achieving a common objective of promoting national security, strengthening stability internally, while projecting strength externally.

But evidence in the public arena indicates that the nation’s security apparatchik may be working at cross purposes as it is deeply fractured .

Until the public spat between the three crime prevention, enforcement and management agencies erupted, nobody really knew how disjointed command and control had become in the presidency which the average Nigerian regard as paradise where nothing goes wrong .

And as the popular saying goes ‘the fish starts rotting from the head’. If Nigeria were a fish, Aso Rock would be the head.

Given all the sleaze and scandal about corruption swirling around the Aso Rock villa which are in the public arena, Nigeria’s seat of power may be rotten and stinking to high heavens.

To make matters worse, it is cold comfort that the schism in the presidency appears to be cascading down into the wider polity as reflected in the ‘civil war’ in the All Progressive Party, APC which is the ruling party.

In any case, the struggle for power between the 5 political parties that dissolved into APC reminds of late Bola lge’ ascetic comment about the five fingers of a leprous hand when parties were being formed under General Sanni Abacha’s watch in 1996.

After Buhari was sworn into office on May 29th 2015, the next line of action which was the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly, NASS provided the opportunity to cascade political power down the ladder.

Being a party that is formed by five distinctive parties with diametrically opposing philosophies which were subsumed by the common goal of supplanting the PDP and particularly then president Goodluck Jonathan, it’s not surprising that APC has become a cauldron of sorts.

Against the grain of thought of the party leadership, Bukola Saraki became the senate president in what can best be described as a coup detat of some sort in the Red chamber , just as against the run of play, Yakubu Dogara also assumed the speakership position in the Green chamber in a putsch similar to the one in the Senate.

But suffice it to say that trying to reverse the decision of the legislators who exercised their free will to choose their leaders is an equivalent of the grave mistake which the former ruling party, the PDP made when it recognized then plateau state Governor Jona Jang who garnered less votes than Rotimi Amaechi, then governor of Rivers state, when both contested for the chairmanship of Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF.

That glaring assault on the fundamental principle of democracy which is that majority carries the votes, remained a fault line until the eventual breakup and dethronement of the PDP as the ruling party.

As soon as Saraki outwitted the APC leadership by defeating the party’s anointed candidate as senate president, he became marked down for political assassination. But being a man with uncanny mettle, Saraki survived the multiple charges of corruption leveled against him.

As such, the noose that was intended to take him to political gallows, as a conviction would have compelled him to resign, failed to snap.

That the political actors who appeared to have looked on with askance or even tacitly or openly supported the pummeling of Saraki by the powers that be, are today victims of similar political chicanery, is remarkably a veritable case study for students of politics.

The frosty relationship between the security agencies clearly reflects the wise crack a “house divided can not stand”

It is indeed a perfect example of the chicken coming home to roost or what goes around, comes around.

The situation which calls for introspection compels two pertinent questions:

In the current politically combustible atmosphere whereby the APC national leader, Bola Tinubu, who has signified his intention to run for the office of the president and going by the social media post earlier highlighted, is being left in the lurch,(as his former allies desert him for greener pastures) who will speak out for him?

With former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar now an endangered political specie after he declared his intention to run again for the presidency and as Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA cancels the multi billion Naira contract with Intel, a firm in which he has significant interest, who will speak out for him?

As 2019 circle of elections ramps up and more politicians throw their hats into the ring, would the current cat fights not degenerate?

The question is elicited by the fact that all the demons in the political cauldron which had retracted their fangs have started baring them like werewolf in season baying desperately for blood.

Need l remind all that the more the internecine war rages, the less the potential of APC returning as the ruling party in 2019.

The ruling party deliberately avoided the very critical storming stage which could have provided the true test of the cohesiveness or otherwise of the amalgamated parties.

And where else to engage in such political horse trading than the party convention which is a veritable platform?

For instance, two years after key aspects of the convention were suspended,avoid the internal strife that it could have sparked, party executive offices such as board of trustees, BOT post etc have remained vacant.

But clearly, the legacy parties that dissolved into the APC which were ordinarily strange bed fellows, preferred to unite against Goodluck Jonathan and PDP by deciding to suspend the projection of their narrow ethnic and religious agendas, just to upend PDP’s trenchant control of government at the center for uninterrupted sixteen years.

If l were president Buhari, l won’t try to be like the Chinese premier Xi Ji Ping who used the recent China’s ruling party’s national conference which holds every five years to consolidate his hold on power by incorporating his policies into the Chinese constitution.

Instead, Buhari should leverage the opportunity to dole out thousands of yet to be filled political offices( board membership etc) to the party faithful who two years after their party literarily rode on the mythical broom into Aso Rock Villa have been waiting to no avail for the reward of their hard work..

Mr president does not need a sooth sayer to alert him to the fact that the motivational zeal of 2015 of party members , which was to first and foremost kick out Goodluck Jonathan and PDP and then share power later, has now evaporated.

A recent comment by ACN former chairman and ex interim chairman of APC , Bisi Akande that the presidential ticket for the party is open for contest in 2019 and the counter statements from notable northern leaders and Buharists might be foreshadowing the storm ahead.

The truth is that things have fallen apart within the APC and the center can no longer hold -apologies to Chinua Achebe.

In the light of the foregoing, if we would allow conventional wisdom to be our guide, avoiding having a difficult conversation owing to its possible nasty outcome, which amounts to postponing the evil day, is an ideal recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

And unfortunately, that is what APC is increasingly tending towards right now.

Unless some fundamental decisions, like taking a clear position on the need to restructure the political architecture of the nation or devolution of more power to the states are made unequivocally; and definite efforts to shorn the presidency of the cloak of corruption with which it is currently draped is made and seen to have been made fairly and justly, the APC may be heading for its waterloo in 2019 .

The ball as they say, is now in president Buhari’s court.

And at the risk of sounding bombastic, if the aforementioned steps are not taken, l predict that there will be political higgledypiggledy in the course of the much awaited APC NEC meeting as members are expected to rebel.

Pessimists aver that Buhari is unbending, as such he may not change his hard stance.

As an optimist, my counter argument is that he was initially against increase in petroleum pump price, but eventually allowed a raise that has facilitated its steady availability; he hated Naira devaluation with perfect hatred,but the Nigerian currency is now half the nominal value before he took over the mantle and Nigerians are looking more inwards for alternatives to imports; when Buhari came to power, the tirades about Nigeria being a ‘fantastically corrupt’ country was fashionable and therefore rent the air, within and outside Nigeria resulting in flight of capital. Now corruption is no more a talking point and Nigerians both home and abroad have regained a bit of respect.

Similarly, anti corruption war, fighting insurgency and resuscitation of the economy were the three point agenda of government and in that order of priority.

Going by the hard stance taken in the past by president Buhari ,and how he has become more accommodating as catalogued above, it may be safe to conclude that he is really not as unbending as most people are wont to believe.

He probably needs to be persuaded or convinced more with superior argument before he can endorse a recommended policy initiative, and that is a matter of style