A former chairman of the ANPP and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kebbi state, Alhaji Musa Abubakar, warns of an impending doom for the party if the leadership fails to sincerely resolve the crisis in its Kebbi chapter. He also advises the APC to intensify search for its presidential candidate ahead of 2015 poll. UMAR MARADUN reports
Challenges in Kebbi APC
Although, the APC in Kebbi state has settled like any other state, but only, there exist some challenges. To be precise, there are internal problems within the APC on how things are going in the party. And candidly, if necessary steps are not taken in good time, such problems can consume the party, or lead to its failure. The most important issue now at stake is centered on leadership. This is because the so-called leaders of the party are mere pretenders, as they lack commitment and zeal to move the party forward and unite members of the legacy parties which formed the APC, but rather factionalized the party.
To start with the factionalization, APC is now having two offices in the state capital, some members of the defunct ANPP/ACN and a fraction of the CPC operate from their office, while the interim chairman Atiku Bunu is having his secretariat.
The leadership crisis emanated from the national headquarters of the party, because, going by the APC’s constitution, members of the three merging parties ought to come together to endorse one of them to lead the party, but that never happened in Kebbi, as some national leaders only nominated Bunu at a meeting in Kaduna and imposed him on us, a situation which members of the ANPP, ACN and a part of the CPC viewed as unconstitutional and therefore, refused to recognize the leadership.
Membership registration
The just concluded membership registration of our party in Kebbi state was conducted very successfully. Having in mind an impending leadership tussle in the state, the national headquarters sent a powerful delegation to the state, the stakeholders were invited for a meeting in Sokoto with the delegation, and at the meeting, we all agreed that there was nothing like party leadership in Kebbi state. So, the delegation organized the distribution of the membership cards to the stakeholders for onward distribution to members at polling units.
Imposition of leadership
For the national leadership to sit down in Abuja or somewhere else to impose leadership on members, that would not augur well for the party. Therefore, such dictatorial style of the leadership must stop henceforth. APC was formed on the basis of equity and fair play, especially, with crop of progressives behind it. But with the kind of leadership we are seeing now, I doubt very much, if the party could win the election come 2015. We have enough time to make amends, so let’s look inward and effect necessary changes, so that mission behind the merger of the three opposition parties would not go in vein. Frankly speaking, there is lack of sincerity on the part of national leadership. You see, for instance, we have problem with the leadership in Kebbi state which was quite known to the national headquarters, but yet refused to act appropriately, after series of assurances. So, this attitude is scaring, considering the task ahead of the party to dismantle PDP both at the state and federal levels.
People are moving to APC, especially in the northern part of the country, simply because they expect change. And, even some PDP supporters are contemplating leaving the party, because of non internal democracy and glaring injustice. What we are seeing in APC is almost the same with what was happening in PDP, as our leaders are doing everything based on their selfish interest.
Assessing PDP-led governments
Honestly, PDP government, both at the federal and state levels, is a failure. The failure of PDP brought massive defection to the APC in all nooks and crannies of the country. You see, when one looks at the security challenges we are facing, particularly in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa where innocent people and school children are being killed on daily basis, one cannot but agree that the PDP leadership is bereft of ideas. It is the responsibility of government at all levels in our country to protect the lives and properties of its citizens, but I wonder how the government had failed in its constitutional responsibility. I could remember in USA, some gunmen went to one of the schools and killed many children. including their teachers, President Obama quickly visited the scene of the incident and was televised shedding tears. But what obtains here in Nigeria? Our president can’t visit Borno or Yobe even when school children were killed. It is much better for the government, particularly the Federal government to as a matter of urgency, end of these killings.
Apart from the killings, there exists abject poverty amongst the teeming youths. The poverty alone could subject youths to all sorts of crimes in the land, and, yet government only uses military option to crush the insurgents, then what about tackling the root cause of the problem?
The same thing is happening in Kebbi PDP administration. Agreed, Governor Saidu Dakingari executed developmental projects all over the place, but notwithstanding this , people are still in abject poverty. In the area of people’s empowerment, the government virtually did nothing. I can say, for too long we are facing challenges of unemployment, poverty among other problems. For example, Governor Dakingari constructed schools in all the nooks and crannies of the state, but, do we have teachers and students in the schools? He also constructed Primary Health Centres, the same thing, do we have qualified medical personnel to man the centres? So, such projects were executed for selfish reasons, but not really, for the development of Kebbi state. Do we build schools and hospitals and be left to the reptiles?. The projects have no bearing on the people of Kebbi state and they are clearly a fraud.
Buhari’s presidential bid:
There is no alternative to the truth. The Buhari factor is responsible for the large followership of the APC in the country, particularly in the northern part. The Nigerian masses have confidence in Buhari, because of the common belief that, the retired general is capable of handling the affairs of the country. Therefore, leaders of the APC should start consultation on the presidential ticket to avoid unnecessary acrimony in the party, because, we all know why APC was formed. At various fora, we talk about salvaging the country. Therefore, we shouldn’t joke with the presidential ticket. The earlier the party’s leadership starts preparations towards the emergence of a popular and credible candidate , the better.
Wrestling power in Kebbi
In spite of the leadership challenges we are facing, the stakeholders have been perfecting plans for the emergence of credible governorship candidate. APC is yet to think of zoning its gubernatorial to any senatorial zone but rather, would give preference to the wishes of the people of Kebbi state. Sincerely, the electorates in Kebbi are tired of PDP, therefore, with little push PDP would be history in Kebbi state. APC would distance itself from the issue of zoning. Our major concern for now is to bring change and whosoever would be instrumental to the desired change would be welcomed.
We want to end the misrule of PDP in Kebbi state because Dakingari’s administration is more of a clique as only a few individuals are involved in the running of the the state.
