By UnderTow
Many Nigerians think the current problem of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is about the party chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, particularly the manner his style is alleged to give offence to party bigwigs and rank and file. Among other things, he is accused of being dictatorial, unduly grandiloquent, uncouth, too feisty for his own and the party’s good, and needlessly confrontational. Worse, in recent months, he has also been accused of being a pawn in the hands of unnamed politicians, particularly a presidential aspirant, despite the party’s convention and primaries being a few years away. Mr Oshiomhole thus has the singular honour of being called a bad name in order to make it possible to be hung. Indeed, the party’s gallows politics, complete with its proverbial humour, truly began a few days ago when a few leaders in the party procured an injunction against the chairman, barring him from continuing in office.
But the real problem with the party is its refusal to abide by its own rules and regulations, a reluctance shockingly canonised by a court in Abuja some nine days ago. Somehow, along the line, some party leaders simply came to the conclusion that Mr Oshiomhole was no longer suitable to be the party’s chairman, regardless of what he has done, or what rules of the party he has offended. And, again, despite the party’s constitution, his opponents have sought to either hamper him or get rid of him peremptorily. They knew there was no way party rules could be bent to unseat him in the manner they have embarked upon; so they went to court armed with trumped-up charges to push for his suspension or castration. Flowing from the unlawfully procured suspension, they have begun a series of machinations to put a seal of permanence on the suspension. A week later, buoyed up by how easily they could suborn the security agencies to flout the law, the antagonists looked like succeeding more than Mr Oshiomhole looked like preventing a debacle.
Some analysts and APC members have argued that the party chairman could not be dethroned in the manner the plotters envisaged. No, all they ask for is for the party to abide by its own rules and not to unreasonably drag in the judiciary. But if their constitution allows them, why, the APC can unseat its leaders every year or month as they very well please. Public interest in their affairs is prompted by their bastardisation of their own rules and the country’s laws and constitution. The APC has not respected its own constitution, and they are dragging the country’s constitution into their self-created confusion. Altogether, in the past two weeks or so since this imbroglio began, there have been about six cases filed in court simply because the ruling party is too undisciplined to allow its own constitution function the way those who drafted it expected it to guide the party’s operations.
First was the ambush injunction in Abuja to compel Mr Oshiomhole to step aside. Next was the party chairman’s own countervailing judgement procured from Kano to keep him in office. To prove it was a conspiracy, the security agencies and the six plotting leaders of the APC who filed the lawsuit against their chairman decided which of the orders to respect. Next was Mr Oshiomhole’s suit in the Court of Appeal which he and every right-thinking analyst hope would restore some sanity and order in the party. The case will be heard on Monday, a day before the second stanza of the deep-seated plot against the party chairman is due to kick-start. On that next day, a Tuesday, the party’s divided National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, said to be unlawfully summoned by the deputy national secretary, Victor Giadom, might hold, principally to seal Mr Oshiomhole’s fate and usher in a new regimented, governors-led era. But not only is the party’s NEC divided, even the National Working Committee (NWC) is also divided. The divisions and acrimony will come to a head on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 if President Muhammadu Buhari does not pull the brakes.
In anticipation of a fractious and fateful NEC meeting, the camps of the plotters and Mr Oshiomhole have gone to various courts in Lagos and Ekiti to enable the meeting hold or prevent it from holding, or at least enable the participation of the chairman’s loyalists. Last Thursday, the plotting leaders of the APC appear poised to determine which court order to obey. The plotters give the impression, or at least the country runs away with the impression, that the presidency appears to be on their side, and against Mr Oshiomhole. It will not be until Monday when the appellate court delves into the case before the country knows exactly where the wheels of justice that have turned badly in recent years will be turning now and in the immediate future.
Nigerian politicians have become reckless, impatient, and subversive of institutions. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was guilty of these high crimes against the nation and its constitution for about 16 years. Sadly, having learnt nothing from history and forgotten nothing, the APC is following hard on the heels of the bad example set by the former ruling party. As the PDP showed in its more than one decade in office, the APC is also demonstrating that when subversive actions and plots begin, the executive branch is either in collusion or in connivance. This conclusion is even truer today, despite the presidency feigning ignorance of the plots convulsing the party. As the Emir Sanusi II deposition has shown, the presidency clumsily pretends to plausible deniability in many instances where no powerful individual or politician forges ahead without clearance from the Villa. Mr Oshiomhole may be deserving of removal, but the party has a process by which that extraordinary measure may be taken. The plot against him is too brusque and too wide-ranging that, despite denials, it can only be done with approval from higher quarters.
The security agencies have not successfully disguised their loyalties. They have virtually handed the party secretariat to the anti-Oshiomhole group. The presidency has pussyfooted enormously, unsure where the pendulum is swinging. In fact, by its ambivalence, it has catalysed the plot against Mr Oshiomhole, nurtured deep fractures within the party and exposed it to destabilising tendencies. The presidency ought to have a very comprehensive vision of what the party must represent and how it must shine its light to the rest of the country and set the pace for politics. Unfortunately, and sadly, neither the APC nor the presidency has shown that discipline and example. On Monday, depending on the Court of Appeal decision, it will be clear where the party is heading. And on Tuesday, depending on how lawful and successful the supposed NEC meeting is, the country will be enlightened about what hope Mr Oshiomhole has left.
But whichever way the wheel turns henceforth, especially with the unsheathing of swords by party combatants, the APC is unlikely to be at peace right up to the next polls. More and more, Most Nigerians are beginning to see that the APC is not only like the PDP, it is probably a worse version of the former decadent ruling party. The forces that are gathered together in the ruling party are unrepentant, vicious and intransigent. In addition, by its peculiar politics, the presidency has managed to emasculate, if not obliterate, the APC’s legacy parties bar one. It is hard to see them rising again without a cataclysm. The APC’s multicultural roots, which served them gloriously during their ascendancy, and which gave them their unique appeal, have all but been obliterated. The APC used to possess a colourful tapestry mounted on a rainbow platform; it now manifests a hideous tapestry of suspicion and rancour, a unicellular organism unable to resist any infection.
Monday and Tuesday are only a shouting distance away from this weekend. It is not only Mr Oshiomhole’s fate that will be determined early next week, contrary to what the coup plotters in the party expect, the fate of the party itself will also be sealed, whether they like it or not, and no matter how grandiose their expectations are. If Mr Oshiomhole is restored, warts and all, the party may nurse some hope towards the fateful 2023 they have all groaned about. If he is finally overthrown, the party may have redefined its destiny and served notice that it will henceforth practice what it does not believe and believe every anathema its worst enemies have read into their life and existence. They may be too far gone to draw back from the precipice; but whatever they choose, they will have to live with it for the time remorseless fate has assigned them.
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