There is no political party in the country that is insulated from a crisis. It is the degree or dimension of hullabaloo that differs. But the impact is usually, more or less, identical.
Currently, each of the three main parties is waging a war against itself. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is yet to recover from its internal contradiction. There is no meeting point yet between Northern PDP and Southern PDP. The bone of contention is still zoning, of either the national chairmanship or the presidential ticket.
The leading opposition party is doing introspection. Those investigating its 2023 electoral loss would find out that lack of equity, fairness, and justice heralded its fall.
Also, the Labour Party (LP) ran into turbulence, even before last year’s election. Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa spent more time in the court than at the party’s secretariat and rallies. Now, it is Abure versus the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which is claiming ownership of the party.
The setting up of reconciliation panels across the six geo-political zones by the All Progressives Congress (APC) implies that all is not completely well with the ruling party. It is dangerous for the party to carry on with arrogance, unmindful of the fact that its predecessor in power, the PDP, once boasted that it would rule for 60 years, only to be booted out by popular vote, after 16 years in Aso Villa, Abuja.
The lesson in the axiom that pride goes before a fall is instructive. That is why the APC has to learn from it, avoid the pitfalls, and put its house in order.
The very nature and character of politics is conflict-induced, competitive and antagonistic. In the game of politics, morality often takes a flight. In some instances, going into politics is akin to going into a war.
It is because of the hunt for power, which, as it is now understood, is not served a la carte. It may also be due to the political culture which wholly permits winner-takes-all. It may as well be due to the fact that as the winner begins to exercise authority or legitimate power, the loser is isolated, ignored, and neglected. Ultimately, he becomes or is perceived as a liability; a symbol of a ticket that could not fly.
But he fights back within the party by undermining or subverting the platform. Other aggrieved losers defect and obtain what has eluded them in their former parties in their next point of call. Others engage in prolonged protest, drawing the party into protracted litigations. The cost is burdensome. It takes its toll on esprit de corps.
Then, the party is divided, polarised, or factionalised and rival camps work at cross-purposes. It breaks into antagonistic caucuses that divide rather than unite. As the history of party politics has shown in Nigeria, intra-party squabbles sometimes tax the parties to the brim than inter-party electoral contest.
As warring party leaders take their battle to the media, the conflict is amplified, sometimes blown out of proportion. The party wobbles on into the election as a divided house. The chance of victory becomes slim. Ahead of election, things would have fallen apart and the centre would be too weak to hold.
Many parties have gone through these phases of bickering with their leaders dissipating more energy on crisis resolution than growing the party and fortifying its organisational structures. It is ironic that in most cases, reconciliation often hits the rock because those who created the crisis are saddled with the peace mission. A great feature of the Nigerian party system is the weakness of crisis resolution mechanism.
According to the First Republic politician, the late Chief Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe, fondly called a ‘Man of Timber and Calibre’ by admirers, people often gravitate to winning parties. Therefore, the coast of the ruling party is enlarged. But the bigger the party, the bigger the headache. As defectors enter in droves, the platform gains a numerical strength. But a party can also be polluted by strange bedfellows if the defectors are not like-minded ideologues.
Also, there is the problem of harmonisation triggered by the battle of supremacy across the chapters and the desire to control the party’s machinery by entrenched forces and interests.
An element of the protracted rift is the acrimonious relationship between governors and Abuja forces; ministers, presidential advisers and National Assembly members. In some states, they do not see eye to eye.
So debilitating also is the cumulative effect of godfather/godson imbroglio. When beneficiaries turn against their benefactors, they enlist behind themselves an army of fanatical supporters who fire salvos and heat up the chapter.
The latest source of conflict in some chapters has to do with ministerial nominations. There are hues and cries over appointments into the federal cabinet and agencies. While the President is at liberty to appoint anybody into his cabinet under the presidential system, based on personal criteria, some party chieftains complain that some appointees representing their states never identified with the party’s structure and its power struggles.
It is noteworthy that the current reconciliatory effort in the APC is the third attempt. The previous attempts were inconclusive. It smacked of hypocritical commitment to the vital assignment.
A heavy responsibility rests on the shoulders of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, who is to reconcile aggrieved chieftains in the Southwest. He is neutral in the crises that have engulfed Ogun, Oyo, Osun, and Ondo states’ chapters of the party. The only seemingly peaceful chapters are Ekiti and Lagos. Even in Lagos, some party chieftains uncritically feel that they are left in the cold and become envious of those in power. When the House of Assembly Speaker can afford to go on air to attack the governor in a bid to demarket, when the list of commissioner-nominees is publicly sent back to the sender, and when notable party chieftains invade the social media to lodge complaints that could have ordinarily been placed before top party leaders and the elders’ forum for peaceful settlement, it is an evidence of repressed tension within the large political family.
Those to be reconciled in Ogun are the camps of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, Senator Gbenga Daniel and Governor Dapo Abiodun. The three groups are not friends.
Former Governor Amosun contributed to the growth of the party in the Gateway State. He is annoyed because his succession plan crumbled on two occasions. He had raised candidates from outside his party to confront the APC candidate in 2019 and 2023. That pattern of endorsing rivals is inimical to the growth of the progressive party.
Last year, a crisis broke out between Abiodun and Daniel. Sources said the rift has to do with 2027, after the expiration of Abiodun’s two terms of eight years, when he will be eligible to vie for the Senate in Ogun East District, to the displeasure of Daniel, who may want to renew his senatorial mandate. Abiodun’s supporters are adamant that Daniel never supported the governor’s second-term bid, an allegation that the supporters of the senator have denied.
In Osun, the two camps led by Blue Economy Minister Gboyega Oyetola and former Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola are locked in a war of attrition. The cost of division is huge. Apart from failing to retain political control in the state, the party also lost last year’s presidential poll to the PDP.
In Oyo, there is a gulf between Mrs. Florence Ajimobi/Adebayo Adelabu camp and the group led by Senator Teslim Folarin.
In Ondo, the party crisis has been worsened by the demise of former Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and the scramble for the governorship ticket ahead of the November poll.
The Rivers APC crisis is much more complex. Leading PDP leaders are supporting APC at the centre. At the state level, the Rotimi Amaechi/Tonye Cole camp and Senator Magnus Abe’s group are foes.
In Kwara, many chieftains are up in arms against Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq. In Kogi, there will be a need to reconcile former Governor Yahaya Bello and Senator Smart Adeyemi. In Gombe, there isfriction between elder statesman Senator Danjuma Goje and Governor Yahaya Inuwa.
The list of camps and political dissents in the ruling party is long. But a resolution of the dissension among the gladiators is not impossible to achieve.
The body language of the party’s leadership and the attitude of those saddled with the reconciliation would determine how easily APC can bring back peace into its fold. It would be nice for the reconciliators to avoid bias and approach their job with open minds. This might be difficult if those handling the assignment have vested interests.
Besides, it takes a large heart to embrace a former foe and agree to work with him to enthrone peace and progress. The party’s peace negotiators could learn a lesson from former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, after the thirty months of the civil war. To avoid further blood-letting, Gowon announced that the pogrom had produced neither a victor nor the vanquished. That pronouncement calmed down the frayed nerves of the warring parties – the Nigerian and the Biafran sides. Years of national development followed.
For APC, peace will return to the fold when party chieftains, especially, overlook the faults of either side and embrace peace. Clinging to the feeling of who did the wrong and should take the blame would prolong the resolution of the crisis.
Peace is never a party to apportioning blame but a deft player at the game of seeing no evil and hearing no evil. Aggrieved members must let the feud of the past go away without further argument. They must open their doors for a fresh embrace of camaraderie to make this political family more united.
