The All Progressives Congress (APC) has been in existence for 10 years during which it has transmuted from opposition to the governing party. But, despite its success story, the party still leaves much to be desired in terms of quality leadership. GBADE OGUNWALE
reports.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) is an amalgam of four different political parties that in February 2013, merged for the purpose of defeating the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The legacy parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) had subsumed their identities under the banner of the APC. The APC changed the face and texture of the country’s political landscape within two years of its formation when it defeated the erstwhile ruling PDP in the 2015 presidential election. The APC, with its array of tested political gladiators, had taken the political stage like a ravaging storm, ending the PDP’s 16-year sojourn at the Presidency. The rare electoral feat of 2015 has come to signify the dominance of the APC in the political space, which has been sustained and consolidated with victories in three consecutive electoral circles to date.
The party was able to maintain some semblance of stability at the formative stage under its interim national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande who was of the ANC stock. Akande however, stepped down in May 2014 when the position of national chairman was zoned to the South-South geopolitical zone. A former Edo State Governor, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun emerged as the first substantive national chairman in June of the same year, a position he held till June 2018. Odigie-Oyegun was succeeded by another former Edo State Governor, Mr Adams Oshiomhole. But, Oshiomhole’s four-year tenure was truncated midway in March 2020 through a contrived legal process orchestrated by forces bent on hijacking the party structure at the national level. In the confusion that ensued following Oshiomhole’s ouster, the then APC Deputy National Secretary, Victor Giadom had declared himself as the acting national chairman. But it was apparent that Giadom’s undefined tenure was only a stopgap measure. President Muhammadu Buhari sacked Giadom along with the entire National Working Committee (NWC) of the party by fiat in June 2020.
This led to the appointment of the Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni as APC caretaker chairman for a period of six months. Buni was given the mandate to organise a national convention to elect a new set of NWC members to run the affairs of the party for four years. He was expected to have discharged his mandate by December 2020 and return to his duty post in Yobe. However, through manipulation, inspired by crass opportunism, Buni succeeded in extending his tenure till March 2022 before he was forced out of office willy-nilly. It was under Buni’s watch that a wave of instability swept through the APC, disjointing the entire party structure at the national level. Critics of the erstwhile caretaker chairman claimed to have seen through his clandestine moves to rig himself into the party’s 2023 joint presidential ticket. His insistence on being the one to lead the APC’s presidential nomination process for the 2023 general election had lent some credence to the accusation. Following Buni’s ouster, Senator Abdullahi Adamu became national chairman in late March 2022. Adamu’s tenure, also, has been uninspiring. He is widely perceived to have picked the gauntlet that Buni left behind. There has been a deluge of complaints among party chieftains over the party chairman’s exclusionist leadership style. Some of the party chieftains have accused Adamu of having come on board with a mindset of truncating the ambitions of some real and imaginary political foes within the party. There were speculations that his choice as national chairman was indeed meant to checkmate the political advancement of certain APC leaders and possibly, to abort their aspirations. Adamu started exhibiting that trait shortly after Asiwaju Bola Tinubu made his now-famous Emilokan Declaration at a public function in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital in June 2022. Apparently having seen through the mire of conspiracy against his aspiration, Tinubu had publicly voiced his displeasure at a gang up by some interests in the APC. Their aim was to edge him out of the race for the 2023 presidential ticket. In the Abeokuta episode, the former Lagos State Governor had reminded his traducers of the roles he played in getting Buhari elected president in 2015, after three failed attempts by the Daura-born retired Army General in 2003, 2007 and 2011 election circles. Video clips of that event went viral, feeding the creativity of skit makers who churned out a series of melodious re-mix of the declaration on social media. But in a swift reaction to Tinubu’s outburst, APC chair Adamu had, at a media briefing in Abuja, threatened that Tinubu would be punished for “disrespecting” President Buhari. The APC chairman had said: “It is amazing how a fellow APC person would make that kind of comment in that kind of circumstance about the President. We take exception to this. It has shown that he (Tinubu) does not show any appreciable level of respect for the office of Mr President.”
“Therefore, we want to make it public that we are saddened by what we saw in the video, in that reportage and we condemn it in the strongest of terms. We do hope that he would never say that kind of thing again, particularly of the APC extraction to make such kinds of comments”. But Tinubu stated that the declaration was a statement of fact already known to the general public. He succeeded in getting his message across Adamu’s protestations notwithstanding. The heat died down after a while.
But, the APC chairman was not yet done with his attempts to abort Tinubu’s presidential aspiration. Barely 48 hours before the June 8, 2022, APC presidential primary election, Adamu had announced to members of the party’s NWC during a meeting, that President Buhari had endorsed the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan as the party’s consensus presidential candidate. However, Adamu could not secure the buy-in of most of his fellow NWC members who, undoubtedly, were suspicious of his intent. Obviously, in cahoots with some unseen hands in the Buhari presidency, Adamu did not give up on the scheme to frustrate Tinubu’s quest for the APC ticket. Long before that, the unseen cabal, with whom the APC chairman was believed to be aligned, had projected former President Goodluck Jonathan and serving Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele as possible APC presidential candidate.
Jonathan and Emefiele were being drafted to contest for the ticket and both men had obtained the N100 million worth of presidential nomination forms through proxies. But while Jonathan was being discrete about his ambition to fly the APC flag, Emefiele threw caution to the wind by embarking on the purchase of campaign vehicles and other paraphernalia in preparation for the contest. Party sources said Jonathan, who paid President Buhari several visits to during the period, eventually opted out when he failed to get the President’s endorsement as APC’s consensus candidate. Emefiele, on the other hand, had intensified the wild goose chase to the point of approaching a High Court in his native Delta State to seek legal backing for his aspiration. What curtailed his inordinate ambition was President Buhari’s directive asking public officeholders seeking to contest for elective positions to resign their appointments before joining the race. Emefiele’s provocative audacity will go down in history as an absurdity never witnessed before in the country’s entire political history since independence. And like Jonathan, Emefiele also had to chicken out when he was asked to choose between holding on to his job as CBN governor and quitting to join the race for the presidential ticket. Lawan, however, had continued to crest in the storm created by Adamu amidst strident agitation for the APC presidential ticket to be zoned to the southern part of the country. The joker finally came from the league of APC northern governors. In a deft move, the governors, after a strategic meeting in Abuja, announced that the party’s presidential ticket must go the south. Rising from the meeting, the governors had appealed to all their compatriots from the North jostling for the presidential ticket to withdraw from the race. The Jigawa State Governor, Abubakar Badaru, was the first to heed the call by withdrawing from the contest. But his Kogi State counterpart, Yahaya Bello who was also an aspirant in the race, insisted on contesting. Bello and Lawan were the only northerners among the 13 aspirants that eventually contested for the ticket. Tinubu won the ticket. Abdullahi Adamu and his backers would have succeeded in foisting a Faustian bargain on the APC if Lawan or any other aspirant from the North had emerged as the party’s candidate.
A defective structure
The APC was able to maintain some semblance of a functional political party from 2014 to 2018 under Odigie-Oyegun, and from 2018 up to June 2020 under Oshiomhole. During the period, President Buhari, as the leader of the party, had remained aloof. This allowed the party to function under the watch of the two erstwhile chairmen. However, the party started losing direction in June 2020 following the appointment of Buni as caretaker chairman. Under Buhari’s watch, Buni managed to manipulate the system to extend his original six-month tenure to 21 months. At the time Buni was removed as caretaker chairman in March 2022, he had plunged the party into a much deeper internal crisis. He failed to execute his original mandate of organising a national convention to elect a new set of national officers to run the affairs of the party. Instead, the ex-caretaker chairman steered the party on the path of disintegration before the APC governors intervened. Piqued by Buni’s shenanigans, the governors, somehow, succeeded in prevailing on President Buhari to show the Yobe governor the exit door.
Enter Abdullahi Adamu, who was the senator representing the Nasarawa West senatorial district at the time he emerged as APC national chairman in March 2022. And like Buni who he succeeded, Adamu also has been uninspiring and overtly divisive in the running of the affairs of the party. Under his watch, the APC has continued to grapple with a crisis of confidence at the national level. Instead of providing the required leadership, Adamu has more often, been second-guessing President Buhari on key party decisions. There have been accusations of running a one-man show against the chairman by some members of the NWC that he leads. For instance, the APC National Vice Chairman (Northwest), Dr. Salihu Lukman, had on a number of occasions, criticised Adamu’s leadership style. Lukman had restated the call for the removal from office of the chairman in a recent media interview. According to him, Adamu, who is also a Muslim, must be replaced with a new chairman who must be a Christian. He made the call in view of the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the incoming APC presidency of Asiwaju Tinubu and Kashim Shettima. Lukman had also stressed the urgent need for a reform of the APC leadership at the national level, a task that may be left for the incoming administration to undertake.
A call for reforms
There is a need for a far-reaching reorganisation of the APC that Buhari will be leaving behind in the next few weeks. For instance, the party has no Board of Trustees (BoT) in place 10 years after its formation. Even though the role of the BoT is advisory, the board is regarded as the conscience of a given political party. ere is a need for a far-reaching reorganisation of the APC that Buhari will be leaving behind in the next few weeks. For instance, the party has no Board of Trustees (BoT) in place 10 years after its formation. Even though the role of the BoT is advisory, the board is regarded as the conscience of a given political party. Ideally, membership of the board usually includes past and serving presidents and vice presidents, past and serving national chairmen of the party, past and serving deputy national chairmen and national secretaries, past and serving presidents of the Senate and their deputies, past and serving speakers and their deputies. They also include serving and past chairmen of the party’s Governors Forum, founding members among other prominent elders of the party drawn from the six geopolitical zones and the Federal Capital Territory. The BoT plays a stabilising role in times of crisis and it guides the party on morality and other sundry issues. Similarly, the APC has no defined National Caucus whose membership and functions are also similar to those of the BoT. It’s the APC Governors Forum that has been playing these critical roles thus far.
Buhari as APC leader
Under Buhari’s watch, the APC is largely being run by the whims. The party has not been having any input in policy formulation and appointments into critical public sector establishments. President Buhari has continued to rely on a coterie of friends, associates and cronies in taking key decisions that ordinarily required input from the leadership of the party. In a few instances where the party got involved in such key decisions, the APC leaders who are supposed to guide the President often choose to advance their personal agenda instead. The manner in which the recent currency redesign policy was introduced, showed the lack of coordination and absence of consociation between the President and the leadership of the APC. In a functional democratic setting, the President would have consulted with the leadership of his party for guidance and advice. Many believe that if there was such consultation, perhaps the party would have advised the President against the policy. The timing of the policy was inauspicious given the fact that it was an election period. Predictably, the policy miscarried and did incalculable harm to the economy. Many businesses, especially in the informal sector, have yet to recover from the shock triggered by the disruption in business activities. The obnoxious currency swap policy also recorded human casualties across the nation. The hardship experienced by Nigerians on account of the ill-timed policy exposed the ruling party to widespread public resentment. But it seemed the backlash was of little concern to the initiators and executors of the policy. This has left observers in doubt as to the commitment of the President and the APC national chairman to the party’s 2023 presidential campaign. President Buhari and Chairman Adamu were observed to have been swinging from ambivalence to prevarication through their utterances and body language at different points during the campaign. But the doggedness of the party’s presidential candidate and the commitment of the APC governors saved the day. The incoming administration has a lot of work to do on the APC that Buhari will be leaving behind after his exit on May 29. Those running the affairs of the party appear to have reduced it to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) designed to achieve their individual political ambitions. The APC must undergo a surgical operation if the party must overcome its numerous leadership and structural challenges. The hardship experienced by Nigerians on account of the ill-timed policy exposed the ruling party to widespread public resentment. But it seemed the backlash was of little concern to the initiators and executors of the policy. This has left observers in doubt as to the commitment of the President and the APC national chairman to the party’s 2023 presidential campaign. President Buhari and Chairman Adamu were observed to have been swinging from ambivalence to prevarication through their utterances and body language at different points during the campaign. But the doggedness of the party’s presidential candidate and the commitment of the APC governors saved the day. The incoming administration has a lot of work to do on the APC that Buhari will be leaving behind after his exit on May 29. Those running the affairs of the party appear to have reduced it to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) designed to achieve their individual political ambitions. The APC must undergo a surgical operation if the party must overcome its numerous leadership and structural challenges.
