At a time there should genuine consolation, reconciliation, and re-strategising ahead of the 2023 general elections, the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, has been thrown into tumoil and ceaseless internal wrangling scripted and cherographed by some moles in the party whose inordinate interest and ego know no bounds.
No one who cares for the successful outing of the APC in next year’s election would be at ease that a party that should be scheming to sustain power and the legacies of President Muhammadu Buhari beyond 2023, is facing the needless rancour. This is even more worrisome considering the fact that President Buhari and the chairman, APC Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Mai Mala Buni, are out of the country when the whole thing came up – certainly, some disgruntled elements have staged a coup against the party.
Since the APC was formed in 2013 by the merger of the legacy parties; Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP), the party has never had a united, progressive, and focused leadership than under Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe state.
Since its formation in February 2013, the APC has produced three national chairmen. They include Chief Bisi Akande, the pioneer chairman, who handed over to former Edo state governor and chieftain of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP); Chief Odigie Oyegun, who was ousted due to some power play between him and some of the influential governors in concert with national leader of the party and now presidential hopeful, Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, also of the defunct ACN, who assumed the mantle of the party on the eve of another general election in 2019.
During Oshiomhole’s tenure, the party fortunes began to nosedive. Instead of the former governor of Edo state to woo people to the party, he reportedly suspended many party stakeholders. Among his casualties were Lawal Shuaibu, deputy national chairman (North), late Alh. Inuwa Abdulkadir, national vice chairman (North-west), former Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha, Ondo state governor, Rotima Akeredulu, and Ibikunle Amosun, etc.
The APC, under Oshiomhole’s divisive leadership and impunity, lost states like Edo and Zamfara because of the crisis he foisted on the party before his ouster and Zamfara and many of the party’s bigwigs including state and national legislators. Consequently, in a bid to rescue the sinking APC, an emergency meeting of the party’s National Executuve Council (NEC) held on June 2020, removed and replaced Oshiomhole with Buni, who was former APC national secretary before he became governor.
In fairness to Governor Buni, what was bequeathed to him by the Oshiomhole national working committee was the remnant of the crisis-ridden party. But he successfully piloted the affairs of the party and succeeded in bringing three serving governors into the party; the Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi and his Cross River state counterpart, Prof. Ben Ayade, and Zamfara state governor, Bello Matawalle, alongside the state’s legislators.
Buni committee had, besides setting up the Abdullahi Adamu committee for reconciliation, been able to return people like former speakers of the House of Representatives (Dimeji Bankole and Yakubu Dogara), former national chairman of the PDP, Sen. Barnabas Gamade, former minister of aviation, Sen. Stella Odua, Sen. Elisha Abbo, Sen. Emmanuel Bwacha, Sen. Hassan Dambu, among others too numerous to mention. He also successful brought former governors Gbenga Daniel, Murtala Nyako, and Bala Ngilari to the party.
Those who are either furious or questioning the legality of the Buni committee, if they truly mean well for the party, should know that the committee deserved extention in view of its remarkable achievements within the short period. In fact, those who are raising eyebrows are definitely wolves in sheep’s clothing who don’t want the progress of APC.
Also, the recent leadership tussle where an APC governor who has lost relevance in his state by losing a bye election of the state assembly, lost his pooling unit and a number of local governments and wards to the opposition PDP in an ordinary local government election, appeared on a national television casting aspersions on the person of Buni is despicable. In a saner society, someone who had these ugly record and under whose watch, the APC lost a former senator and serving member of the House of Representatives to the PDP should not have the guts and temerity to join issues with Buni.
In an leaked letter to the INEC, Buni was so magnanimous to have transferred power to his deputy, Governor Sani Bello of Niger state. But for the latter to take office in a coup like manner exposes the script designed by APC’s adversaries.
As the dust settles down, if the APC wants to remain united and formidable capable of winning the upcoming elections, Governor Buni must be allowed to finish the good work he has started, for he has proved himself as the mainstay of the party.
Umaru writes from Kaduna
