By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Except one insincere to his own soul will claim not to know that what is happening currently within the All Progressives Congress (APC) is a time bomb that will explode not now but later. The consolation in this, anyway, is that President Muhammadu Buhari will have passed victoriously. The question then will be, who says President Buhari will not be the last Nigeria’s President that APC will produce? Hence politicians of APC should wake up and be careful.
I am called aback to this topic because of the issue involving the National Working Committee (NWC) of APC led by His Excellency Comrade Adams Oshiomhole allegedly being used by a “cabal” within the party to remove some strong allies of President Muhammadu Buhari from relevance thereby retiring them from active politics in 2019. That happened in Zamfara, Ogun, Imo and Oyo states.
All of us onlookers have for long advocated party discipline particularly in ruling party because that is where actions and inactions affect our collective lives as people of Nigeria. But when what is thought to be effort at instilling party discipline begins to show the carriage of sectionalism whereby all the people said to be whipped into line are members of just one camp within the party and inadequacies of others are overlooked, then, there is need for us to call out to ourselves and others about a fire on the mountain, which will require us all to run, run and run. But for how long are we going to condone situation where people who are being watched are themselves looking out to other places? Is this how our ruling class intend to face those who are desperate about taking the ownership of Nigeria back in the next months national and state elections?
If not, what have you done to cause the kind of no love lost between the party leadership and politicians the likes of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari and Dr. Abdulraheem Adebayo Shittu and, despite, President Muhammadu Buhari’s directives for NWC to shelve the dangling axe about to let down on members being whipped for going to court against some acclaimed injustices done against them by the party and that effort should be made to reconcile with them?
Before I go into details of this, let me trace the background of the people that are being dealt with now in APC and for whose reason there are hews and cries all over the place against the whipped coming around the President. And I will say that anything done to cut the ties which exist between the President and those politicians will only be effort in futility. This is because, there is suspicion in the whole of the fight.
When, in the buildup to the 2015 general election opposition parties who had always lost elections, meant business about unseating the 16 years old of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from power, what they did was to form a merger. Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) led by General Muhammadu Buhari, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, All Nigeria’s Peoples Party (ANPP) led by Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu and a faction of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) led by Owelle Rochas Okorocha put heads together and formed the merger.
I recall Chief Segun Osoba told me in an interview I did with in his Bourdillon Lagos home that performance of then Governor of Lagos State Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) was the template “we used” (ACN I guess he meant) to negotiate the merger. Osoba was talking on the heels of Buahri’s giving stronger portfolios to South West and Osoba tried to prove the justification of Fashola’s three ministries but warned that Yoruba race must not disappoint the President who had so trusted them with such responsibilities. Then the name of the new party was formed around CPC, ACN and ANPP (All – ANPP; P – CPC/ACN; C – CPC/ACN) and slogan of the APC was clearly picked from the CPC as “CHANGE”!
To ensure peace, harmony and progress among merging leaders, all of those political parties which were already registered by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were directed by the stakeholders to collapse. And they all agreed to collapse with each of their leaders being called National Leader. CPC’s Prince Tony Momoh only from that party of Buahri was called National Leader, whereas ACN has three of from its collapsed fold in Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande, and Chief Segun Osoba who were called National Leaders while also the only National Leader recognized from ANPP was Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu. Okorocha of APGA only chose to governorship candidate in Imo. This is according to interview granted me by Prince Tony Momoh which was published with all the prominence in Vanguard and no one ever disputed it. It was after the merger that New PDP led by Atiku Abubakar came in.
With the struggle for the soul of National Assembly, anyway, the noise about collapsed parties came up and we again, disappointedly, began to hear about those parties. But Prince Tony Momoh advised in that party that Asiwaju knew what he did to bring five governors of PDP into the APC after it was formed and that he should not at that point think that because somebody was PDP or whatever, he could not be anything in the merger arrangement. That was how the ACN camp began to reecho in APC. But President Buhari’s refusal to be dragged into that politics of know-your-former-camp thing saved the ground. Although it was responsible for why Bukola Saraki eventually grew wings having emerged from the Tinubu/Atiku struggle over the NASS leadership, the struggle itself is the reason Nigeria had been dragged aback and would have shutdown the government if Nigerian supporters of the President who decided to jettison the party system and hold on to the person of Buhari and have continued to support him until today. That is why it is playing out now that everybody including members of other parties are rooting for President Buhari’s re-election at Federal but are talking different tunes at state level.
Amosun belonged to the ANPP, Shittu belonged to the CPC, Okorocha belonged to the APGA faction, Saraki belonged to the New PDP that joined the merged party. Recall Atiku, whose reason for leaving APC was that he spent all on APC elections but was neglected thereafter. It was same Atiku who used Saraki to control NASS and it became serious trouble for Nigeria as politicians in control economy and commerce caused the sabotage in the public space details not matter of this article. Saraki eventually orchestrated the pull out of the remnants of New PDP left behind by Atiku from the APC, which had its toll in the polity and welfare of Nigerians except that President Buhari held fast to governance and Nigerians are now happy.
Now, New PDP had since gone. Why is it that people that are now being described as problem of APC are politicians that, when we look at them, are mainly of the merger stakes? Amosun (ANPP, he had problem already in ACN because he was accused of using the success of ACN governorship to advance the course of his ANPP fellows); Shittu (CPC), Yari (ANPP) and Okorocha (APGA). There is no single politician of ACN background who is currently having problem in APC. So much that it will be recalled it was because of Buhari that Fashola had problem in Lagos and up till today he continues to be taking things easy as his action and inaction could be interpreted as being used by President Buhari to take over Lagos from Asiwaju Tinubu. Governor Akinwumi Ambode who was working against Fashola at that time to please Tinubu, when the ships went down and he ran to Abuja, how possible would it be for Abuja to help him against Asiwaju at a time that doing that would mean that Baban Daura was trying again to take yet another boy of the Garrison Command of Lagos Politics headquartered in Bourdillon?
No serious politician like Governor Ibikunle Amosun, who knew what he did together with Tinubu, I gathered, to frustrate Chief Olusegun Osoba as Ogun State Leader of ACN until he moved into the Social Democratic Party (SDP) along with his associates including his former Deputy Governor Senator Gbenga Kaka, would sit down and allow his hands to be tied down in the name of an Oshiomhole trying to instill discipline in the party. Not even when the impression all over the place is that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was the one who installed Oshimhole and therefore is using him to protect his own interest in the party they all formed together.
The afore-stated is truth and nothing but the truth that I know about the background of the current crisis in the APC. Where President Buhari somebody who is informing him or not, no one needs to be told what is going before the President himself begins to think deep about the situation. It is the reason no one can rightly blame him if he chooses not to toe the line of the NWC of APC against Amosun, Okorocha, Shittu and Yari. It will be recalled that the NWC led offensive has deepened the party in serious crisis situation in Zamfara except that, because of the insecurity that opposition politicians are alleged to be fomenting in the state, Presidency may have to declare a State of Emergency to allow a military officer take over the administration for the next six months thereby demolishing all democratic structure in the place for fresh system to be re-arranged. Else, APC will hand the state easily to opposition PDP because of this same alleged move by NWC against the Buhari’s boys in APC.
It is therefore the reason I am talking to my South West supports of these politicians of which I am one, a Buharist to the core, who join in the blame game against President Buhari for allowing Amosun to bring Abdulkabir Akinlade to the Villa as APM governorship candidate in Ogun State, that when we have technical issues on our hands, we should be capable of recognising we do.
Now moving forward, what has happened in states where APC national chairman is moving against the Buhari boys is something that, not even Buhari will accept. But we, in the South West, appear to be quick in retreating to our shell when the ships are down only bothering about ourselves and no longer about Nigeria that we all have fought seriously in the last four years to save from consultium of looters. No one should forget how Abubakar Bukola Saraki developed wings. It was basically because of struggle of between Tinubu and Atiku for the soul of Buhari Government through the National Assembly control. Where that landed us we remain till today and it took God’s intervention to save our country from the dangers it posed by Saraki and his group.
We do not learn from history and that is why we are looking at Amosun, Okorocha, Yari and Shittu as half-cast in the party of APC. But we should tarry a while and ask ourselves: Why Buhari boys only are having this problem? Does it mean that Buhari boys are the problem in APC? Don’t just let us talk about why Fashola has gone into the oblivion as Buhari boy for Tinubu to know that Buhari is not using him against him. One before another: Oyo, Oshiomhole knowing that Ajimobi did not partake in NYSC as alleged without excuse as genuine as Shittu’s but he quickly went ahead, after APC panel had cleared the Minister for primaries, and disqualified him while he had gone to court over the report, we should tell ourselves has done badly. Yes, we all want party discipline but you don’t instill discipline in party by doing double standard. You will not be popular therefore.
That is why it is always difficult for me to fall easily into scam, economic or political. I cannot say because I love Oshimomhole as radical person who is capable of facing anybody fail to see his wrong, which is conspiring with some influence to quickly take the South West back from the Buhari boys. If that is what we want, we should speak out. Not to make the Buhari boys look like fools.
We should ask ourselves which administration in Ogun State ever did what Amosun has done? If the ones in the past had worked like him, would the state not be a Dubai by now? Look at Imo, we are all attacking Okorocha because he wanted his son-in-law. But we do not ask ourselves, has APC leadership sat to find out why Okorocha descend to that level? Imo people started to make me fear when, despite the great things Okorocha has done in that state, they said he did nothing. If such a man decided to put anybody like his son-in-law, it calls for serious attention therefore that he saw something coming. However, we all love to pride ourselves of taking after American democracy. Recently, President Donald Trump nominated and subsequently appointed his son-in-law as Chief of Staff in White House, Presidency of the United States: Americans did not raise dust. We need to ask ourselves a lot of questions here in Nigeria.
If Amosun is Buhari’s very close ally and he visited the President in the Villa and we want Buhari to send him back, we should ask ourselves, if politicking ends, will Buhari and Amosun not continue to remain as Nigerians? Why are we looking at APC now in APM being brought Amosun who remains in APC visiting Villa at face value leaving out the basis? We cannot drag Buhari into such problem. He is father of all in that case and he will continue to relate well with all of them until they are able to resolve their problems.
The President had told APC to reconcile with those people but Oshiomhole insisted on his ground. No problem. When the offshoot of the unresolved problem comes out, why do we want Buhari to join people who are only using APC platform to advance their own personal ambition? We should be careful because, Buhari may be the last President of APC if we continue to allow this kind of attitude to politics occur. Go to Lagos and see how many people are within APC in body but not in spirit. Go and see how many of them have moved tactically out of APC and are contesting in other party. Why are we not talking about that? I insist that while we want our own to be respected, we should respect politicians of other tribes too because, the way I am seeing it, we love to push tribalism into politics when it comes certain level and I don’t think my spirit works with that.
REACTION TO “PRINCESS AMINA ZAKARI, BUHARI AND THE UNFOUNDED LINK”
Abdulhakeem Abdullateef (United States) PDP has nothing remaining in their integrity. They are cry baby. No feeding bottle for cry baby.
Frank Taylor (Ikorodu, Lagos State, South West Nigeria) Even the blind need no special sermon to know which particular direction the pendulum of victory would swing! The pdp had had its cake and had eaten it! Now, is there any ground-swelling pdp campaign out there? No! Is there really any credible candidate enough to rattle Buhari in the pdp herd? None! Do they have any theme, subject and substance? None! The crux of the matter is, …. the apple is rotten cos its planter is a rotten farmer! They really cant pin-point any meaningful substance in their sixteen years rape-related government. They are terribly wounded, and out of frustration they are fighting dirty and still keep being cousins of pigs! Interestingly, the president finally killed the steam in their expectations when he totally submitted the headship of his campaign to Asiwaju, while he let loose Osinbajo to go carve niche for self, …. what does that tell you? 2019 is already taken, and the ground-work for ’23 is all you guys are seeing! THEM BRINGING AMINA ZAKARY INTO THE FRAY IS SIMPLY FOR DISTRACTION SAKE! BEFORE NOW, THEY ALL KNEW THE GENEOLOGY AND ADMINISTRATIVE JOURNEY OF THE WOMAN, HER BUS STOPS AND CHANGE OF STATIONS AS PER EACH GOVERNMENT, … ITS ALL ADVANCE PLOY TO PROTEST AND MAKE SMALL THE ONCOMING VICTORY OF BUHARI! FACT IN THIS MATTER IS, PDP ISNT ON GROUND FOR THIS ELECTION, AND IN ATIKU’S INNER-MOST MIND, REGRETS MUST HAVE STARTED WELLING UP COS, …. for the first time in the anals of this nation, we witnessing a presidential candidate whose “supposed” subjects arent willing to have selves identified with, or what do we make of a situation where governors and the rest contestants are going solo in their campaigns and so scared of dropping the name of their presidential candidate … even with some Pdp guys going totally sacrilegious by afixing Buhari of the Apc’s pix alongside selves on their campaign emblems. THE MARKET IS ALREADY CLOSED, THE REST ARE MERE NOISES OF THE INCONSEQUENTIALS!
Justina Nkoli Aliku (Nigeria) Gbagaaam!
*This is opinion article of Prince Bashir Adefaka, Lagos-based media practitioner and Editor of The DEFENDER. Reach via Whatsapp: 08163323906. Email: omope72@gmail.com
