Men often appear to be short-sighted or even blind to the probable consequence of their ill-desires. The biblical account of Jacob and Esau explains this better.
With the APC national convention billed for June 23, 2018, the party’s warlords have begun to dissipate energy in attacking one another in various states of the federation, for exertion of vested interests or for winning the title of “Master of the Game” in one’s state.
Efforts are being made to supply and stock caches of insults and blackmail against selves, forgetting the big political battle that awaits them come 2019. This is, indeed, the tragedy of desires.
It will be self-delusion for any APC chieftain to pretend that all is well in most of the APC-controlled states. There obviously is less enthusiasm and more tension amid preparations for the next month convention of the party, owing to rifts, tussles and imbroglio in many states and even within the party’s convention planning committee and sub-committees.
This convention will probably make or mar the structure and future of the party as it (the convention) has the prospect of consolidating the party’s leadership in the country and in most states of the federation, and it as well holds the prospect of giving strength to the strongest political party, PDP, to put up a fierce challenge or even, by any chance, wrestle power from the ruling APC for history to repeat itself. In either case, it is up to the APC leadership to make things right across all structures of the party or to prepare a good ground for re-emergence of PDP.
Not to only state that the power contest between the Executive and the Legislature is far from over, within the latter a battle line has been drawn between those who pay loyalty and allegiance to the Executive arm under President Muhammadu Buhari and in-house loyalists to Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
In some states where APC had a strong base in 2015, now the certainty of maintaining the status quo is decimated by intra-party politicking. In Kano state, for example, Governor Ganduje and Senator Kwankwaso have divided the party into two warring camps, talk less of Kaduna state, where the political war is bloodier between Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i and Senators Hunkuyi and Shehu Sani.
Bauchi state cannot be said to be the least of the troubled states, with the recent resignation of Nuhu Gidado as Deputy Governor of the state, which has reduced the aura of the party’s government in the state.
In Kogi state, Governor Yahaya Bello and Senator Dino Melaye vowed to destroy each other. In Enugu state, the conflict from the party’s concluded congress is in court and may not be put to rest even after court verdict.
In Zamfara state a parallel party congress was held, hence the party is now in two factions of Governor Abdul’aziz Yari and that of Senator Kabir Marafa.
In Katsina state, apart from the known ruling APC in the state, there exists another one identified as APC-Akida under control of some powerful political commanders. In Adamawa and Lagos states, the situation is the same, where the indigenous APC battles with the Abuja APC.
In Imo state, the situation is in no way better with the recent defeat suffered by Governor Rochas Okorocha at the party’s state congress. One cannot call what is going on in Oyo state between Governor Ajimobi and Minister Adebayo Shitu a cold war.
The two men have sworn to see each other’s end. With all this, the future of APC is bleak-if we still have the genesis of PDP’s crash in mind. Obviously, the party’s leadership has not (looking at their abysmal commitment towards stopping the crisis) for even a second thought of at whose expense this crisis is happening vis-à-vis its consequence.
Worse is that the party’s national leadership which is supposed to be proactive in addressing and amicably settling grouses across all structures of the party, is now sharply divided between loyalists to current National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, and loyalists to the party’s national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his anointed godson candidate for the party’s chairmanship, Adams Oshiomhole.
All the above considered, the party appears to be traumatized like a patient diagnosed of having cancer, with 50-50 survival/death tendencies.
If the crisis presently rocking the party persists up to the time of national convention and by extension to 2019 polls, I bet, things will completely fall apart and the party will be in a shambles.
To call the crisis such a “common political bullying” simply means underrating its accumulating effect, the view I see as a misnomer. I do not want to believe that the APC leadership does not know the fact that it is easy for lizards to invade a house when people allow cracks in the walls.
My concern here is growth of our democracy, which will certainly suffer a setback if governments are cut short before they prepare solid grounds for their policies and programmes.
In the face of the growing crisis, it is left for the party’s leadership to choose between selfish interests and altruism, for success or failure of the party come 2019.
Said writes from Kaduna via [email protected]
