The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to have set the stage for a successful outing in the forthcoming general elections in 2023 following its seamless and hitch-free national convention in Abuja a fortnight ago.
The successful handling of the intrigues and horse trading that trailed the emergence of Senator Abdullahi Adamu, a former governor of Nasawara state, as the APC national chairman by the party’s apparatchik, was, indeed, a strong signal to the opposition parties that APC is poised to sweep the 2023 polls.
However, the APC, particularly, the Adamu National Working Committee (NWC), must be wary of certain pitfalls which were mainly responsible for the fall of the then ruling but now main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 elections.
The pitfalls are, essentially, the imposition of candidates, the total disregard of party supremacy, rules and extant agreements, the marginalisation of key stakeholders, among others.
It is worthy of note that Adamu seemed to have addressed the issues when he expressed the party’s readiness to clear the foggy cloud that may impede its victory in the 2023 general elections.
The APC national chairman, who said he has never captained a failed ship or led a failed mission, noted that the new task will not be different.
Speaking at the inauguration of the NWC penultimate Tuesday, Adamu said the party would not have room for failure. “With the enormity of the job and trust that President Muhammadu Buhari has placed on us, we have no excuse.
“We are going to ensure that anything we need to work will be provided. Any atmosphere that is cloudy, we will clear it as best as we can. We shall face the election as one party, one family and confront our adversaries or opponents as one united party.
“We’ve faced election before when our president today was not a president and we won. He took the oath of office and he took the oath with the Qur’an. As a Muslim, he will not do anything that will contradict the spirit and letters of the constitution.
“He has two terms of four years each and he’s about to complete the final term. He has made it clear that he won’t contest again and that means that we will not be having an incumbent, somebody on the saddle of power, from our party on the ballot as we face the next election.”
Although, the new APC national chairman sought the cooperation of all stakeholders for the success of the party, he, nevertheless, vowed to probe his predecessors to ensure there were no sharp practices by the previous leadership and to ensure that he would start off on a clean bill.
He warned that the party cannot move the way it is moving if it is desirous of winning in the 2023 general elections.
While addressing other executive members on assumption of duty at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja, the former governor said it was time for all hands to be on deck, while also demanding total loyalty from his committee members.
“As for those of you who just received your certificate just like me, members of the working committee, I have told you during our first meeting of the committee, I am a team player. I am a team player as much as is possible, I want to carry everybody along with me.
“But to work with me, not because I am the best and everything, you have to be loyal. You are loyal to me is not loyalty to me but loyalty to the party. You have to recognise the authority of the party in all that we do and the interest of the party is paramount.
“As for you, the director of administration, you have no hiding place. We will count on your loyalty to the party. It is in God’s pleasure that we are here at the helm of affairs of this party. We have come with a very open mind but you have to reciprocate in same spirit.
“We will definitely, by the will of God Almighty, look at the secretariat, look at the accounts; we need to look at you, but I am not saying anything today until the transition committee submits its report.
“It is my hope that by the time the report is submitted, you have what they call clean bill of ledger, that’s my prayer.
It is trite to state that with less that a year to the general elections, the Adamu-led NWC has a herculean task to not only win the elections, particularly the seat of the president, but also to build a formidable, virile, nationalistic and pan-African political party that is rooted in pragmatic welfarist cum people-oriented ideologies.
The lack or failure of a clear-cut ideology since the return to civil rule in 1999 has been the bane of Nigeria’s multi-party democracy and, by extension, the nation’s economic and socio-political development.
