The Power GameThickens...
Without officially declaring open the 2019 elections, there are strong indications that the race, which is a few months away, might have already begun. It also goes without saying that a majority of the events that have shaped the last few weeks have not helped matters either, but corroborated this position. Interestingly, what appears the slight difference between the last national elections and the much talked about 2019 is that the battles are being fought at different levels, albeit at the highest level of power play. Whilst some are being fought at the party level (intra and inter), some are being slugged out at the parliamentary level. The presidency has its hands full as it struggles to deal with all sorts of challenges within its ranks, including looking for a selling narrative or message that could appeal to the people. But, whatever it is, some of the experiences of the last few days seem to have provided the platform for a good review of the coming elections, write Olawale Olaleye, Deji Elumoye, Omololu Ogunmade and Onyebuchi Ezigbo report
About a week ago, just before he left for his 10-day vacation in London, the United Kingdom, President Muhammadu Buhari, had requested of his supporters to suspend all forms of campaigns, pending the time the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declares the race open. He frowned at any activities, either directly or indirectly, that could foul the laws of the land. The irony, however, was that shortly before he embarked on the trip, Buhari too, had paid an unscheduled visit to his campaign office in Abuja, newly and beautifully put together by the Minister of Transportation and Director General of the campaign organisation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi.
Although the president was circumspect in terms of his utterances, because when the Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha allegedly asked for the programme of activities, the president, who described himself as the Chairman of the campaign, allegedly said he would provide all of that with time, the campaign office in itself was a message with subliminal content.
But could it also be sheer coincidence that a few days to the vacation trip, there was an initial move to arrest the President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, when the police blocked his residence and that of his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, with the sole aim of effecting leadership change in the legislature? That failed, but unfortunately, it exacerbated the intensity of the power game, as the different contending forces dug deeper into their trenches on the path to 2019.
However, with a second and brazen attempt at a forceful leadership change in the Senate, a move that left both the government and the country thoroughly embarrassed before the international community, there is no gainsaying the fact that the 2019 battle has begun in full blaze, whether or not INEC has declared the race open. It is now an open political warfare as each side perfects strategies to outdo each other and gain political advantage.
Enter Party Politics
The signs of the current cracks in the various political parties and the rivalry therefrom derived basically from the manipulations of the congresses and national conventions especially, of the two main political parties – the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The exercises conducted by the two parties were fraught with such manipulations that gave away the sincerity of their respective congresses and conventions. Whilst the development was not as bad in the PDP as it quickly moved in to contain the various tendencies, the APC has sort of failed in handling its own situation well, a move that has resulted in staggering defections of very important members of the party, including the President Senate of the Senate, Saraki, governors, former governors, senators, House of Representatives members and many more party faithful.
Unfortunately, for the new leadership of the APC, which is believed to have more to lose than the PDP in the emerging power play, rather than being contrite and employ suasion in dealing with the tense situation, it became annoyingly arrogant, calling the bluff of those, who could not stand its guts and even threatening to sack ministers, who would not play by the rules. It won’t stop there; it also sent a clear message to the president, when the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole said if the president had been condoning a disrespect of his office, he would not.
And because of the palpable indication that the president might not be hands-on, a fact that has always been public
knowledge, this leadership, in connivance with some characters in the party decided to run their own government within the legitimate government of President Buhari to flesh personal agenda, however, in the name of the president.
Expectedly, the PDP too has refused to let the APC live rent-free on the turf by constantly pushing back hard on nearly every issue. Also, supporting the position of the PDP at nearly all the time is the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), which just appointed a former APC spokesperson, Bolaji Abdulahi as its new Publicity Secretary.
Although the engagements have been a little bit dirty and tension-soaked, sometimes with the crudest of languages being employed, the PDP has also tried to make the 2019 debate issue-based by constantly raising concerns to which it has been encouraging the Nigerian people to ask relevant question.
Clearly, party rivalry actually presents itself as the fulcrum of debate in the battle for 2019, both internally and across. But with more defections expected across the parties sometime soon, the rivalry is also expected to scale up in the next few weeks as the election dates approach.
Defections and their Import
For some time now, the APC and the PDP have engaged in a battle of wits, trying to surpass each other in what many observers have dubbed the political transfer market. As at the last count, the APC had lost a substantial number of its key support bases to the PDP. Most of them now crisscross the country, seeking to appease or woo more members. With the gale of defections rocking the polity, the first to go was the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, who had to defect to the PDP with a majority of the members of the State House of Assembly as well as all his political structures in the state.
APC had hardly recovered from the shock of Ortom’s departure, when about 14 Senators of the APC left the party in their droves to join the PDP. But the defection of the senators did not go without a drama, as there was a major onslaught on the leadership of the Senate by security agents. Early in the morning of the day of the senator’s defection, the homes of Saraki and Ekwerenmadu were barricaded by fully armed Policemen to prevent them from attending the day’s sitting.
Saraki had to pull off one of the uncommon political stunts in the country’s recent history to beat the security and found his way to the Senate chambers to preside over the day’s proceedings. The defection train also saw former governor of Kano State, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso lead a good chunk of the lawmakers from the state to defect to the PDP.
As if scripted, a week after the Kano defection, the Kwara State governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed also left the ruling APC with his entire cabinet, state assembly lawmakers and party structures in the state and moved to the PDP. The gale defections from the APC continued unabated. With the defection of the Kwara State governor, who is a known protégé of the Senate President, everyone expected his boss to toe the same line, but Saraki kept his decision to his chest and waited, perhaps, for the right moment to drop the bombshell.
When Saraki’s decision to defect to the PDP came, it was communicated in style. First, it came through a short tweet early in the morning but as newsmen and politicians tried to digest his post, the real message came via his media aides, who issued a lengthy resignation letter, chronicling all his reasons for bidding the APC goodbye.
Another blow to the APC ego came shortly after Saraki’s departure, as the Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal defected from the party to the PDP with a majority of the state lawmakers. Aside from this, there were other defections suffered in the APC states like Kaduna, Katsina, Adamawa and Niger.
The leadership of the party had dismissed the defections as a non-issue especially, the defections in the Senate. It said as the ruling party, it still maintained the majority, although such position has been disputed by the PDP, which claimed that it has taken over the majority in the Senate.
But the later reaction of the ruling party belies its earlier bravado that it had nothing to worry about.
A visibly shaken APC immediately beckoned on President Buhari to help halt the defections. National Chairman of the party, Oshiomhole had to shuttle between his office and the Aso Rock Villa, where series of meetings and consultations were held to map out the strategies to adopt in rescuing the ruling party from drifting. Not even the initial braggadocio exhibited by Oshiomhole and some of APC leaders could calm the tension and anxiety caused by the defection of 14 of its senators in one fell swoop.
More worrisome was the possibility of APC losing its majority status in the senate, which could lead to PDP not only occupying the two principal offices of the President of the Senate and the Deputy, but also taking over the seat of the majority leader. Such were the stakes that woke up the lion in the APC and its leadership started making efforts to reconcile with aggrieved members, trying desperately to reverse the advantage PDP seemed to have gained with regards to wining over key politicians.
However, the effort of the APC paid off, when its dragnet caught a big fish in the South-south politics, in the person of former Senate Minority Leader and former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio. Before Akpabio’s defection, APC national chairman had gone to Ebonyi State to receive a senator from the area into the party’s fold. The ruling party also took advantage of the misgivings that heralded the return of Saraki to the PDP to woo the Kwara State PDP chairman, Iyiola Oyedepo.
Although APC is still basking in the euphoria of having caught a big fish in Akpabio and some House of Assembly members, its leaders know that it still needs to do more in order to match the calibre of defectors PDP has garnered in the last few weeks. With the high chances of the Speaker of House Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara also defecting from APC along with his loyal colleagues, it remains to be seen what the ruling party is going to do to counter the trend.
Putting Akpabio and Kwankwaso side by side, the latter will no doubt be more beneficial to the “umbrella” than the former to the “Broom revolutionaries”. For instance, Kwankwanso pulled Kano State Deputy Governor, some state assembly members, commissioners, state APC chieftains and other political appointees with him to join the PDP. Don’t forget Kano alone has two million votes, whereas Akpabio pulled only two commissioners and a few legislators to join the APC during the mega rally at Ikot Ekpene Township Stadium. In fact, four of Akpabio’s aides resigned and insisted on staying with the PDP.
A Background to the Siege
When Senate President Saraki formally defected from the APC to the PDP, in his country home, Ilorin, the Kwara State capital on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, little did he know that his return to the PDP, which he left some four years ago, would generate so much heat! The APC caucus in the Senate, which claimed it still has the majority quickly swung into action and commenced moves towards ensuring that Saraki vacates his seat as Senate President, having left the party under which platform he became the nation’s number three citizen.
The Senate Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan, who is also the Chairman of the APC Senate Caucus and arrow head of the game plan met with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa in