By Emeka Alex Duru
Could the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) be right in its allegation that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is already passing through death throes and pre-election trauma?
This is a question that has been trending, even, in some quarters, following what seem serial missteps of the party at various levels of its engagements, lately.
Of course, the PDP has not been a better alternative, having on its own, failed woefully in providing a robust opposition, needed to keep the ruling party on its toes.
But with each day, APC, in irony of sort, accords confirmation to insinuations by critics that is merely a congregation of strange bedfellows, hurriedly needled together for the sole purpose of capturing power in 2015, without knowing what to do with it.
Somehow, the party, had on several occasions in the past, put up actions that lent credence to this allegation.
But as the momentum for the 2019 general elections gathers steam, APC is increasingly appearing to be in huge stress.
Perhaps, nothing captures the current state of uncertainty in the party, more than the confusion that trailed its ward congresses in various states of the federation, last Saturday, May 5, 2018.
That was aside the fracas that played out at the governorship primary of the Ekiti State chapter of the party, the same day, leading to the exercise being declared inconclusive.
While the stalemate in Ekiti, was blamed on manipulations and sharp practices by some of the aspirants, the confusion in the congresses in other states, had more to do with absence of internal democracy in its fold.
For a party that had, at its formation in 2014, sold a dummy of progressive politics, APC has, sadly, had to live with conflicting identity, four years after.
A Party and its roadmap for new Nigeria
While the party sought for votes in 2015, it had presented Nigerians with an enchanting roadmap that it had claimed, would take the country to the next level.
In what it presented as a 10-point agenda for a new Nigeria, the party listed areas it would focus on to make life meaningful if elected in 2015.
Highlights of the presentation included job creation; anti-corruption fight; free; relevant quality education; agriculture; housing plan; and healthcare plan for children and adults.
The party also listed social welfare scheme for the less advantaged as well as road, power plant construction, among its priorities, adding that it would strengthen peace, security and foreign policy.
Its antidote for unemployment, included immediate creation of 20,000 jobs per state for those with a minimum qualification of secondary school leaving certificate and who participate in technology and vocational training.
There was also the pledge of establishing Technology/Industrial Estates fully equipped with ICT, power and other support across the country to attract and encourage small-scale technology businesses and other entrepreneurs.
The dream is bungled
However, three years into office, the party seems to have dumped its roadmap to national recovery. In place of an agenda that would give the country the needed boost, intrigues, chicanery and power play within the leadership at all levels, appear the order of the day.
Consequently, with a compromised leadership that is obviously more contended with enjoying the perquisites of the office, than providing the surge in harnessing the human and material resources in the land, the party has virtually frittered the goodwill it had earlier enjoyed from the people.
It is now, a matter of survival of the fittest or as they say, ‘everybody for himself and God for all’. This is perhaps, the only way to appreciate the current rat race in the party.
Buhari, others fingered in the rot
Neither the Presidency nor the National Assembly which the party controls, nor its Abuja national office has helped matters in any way.
Virtually reduced to the position of a lame-duck by cocktail of intrigues to shove him and his team out of office in the next two months, the national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, can hardly do much in arresting the drift.
He is even in a battle of survival, at least, not to be disgraced out of office, before time, having been dumped by his Edo State wing of the party, in favour of the former governor, Adams Oshiomhole.
Not even President Muhammadu Buhari, who, many had thought, had been his shield, could come to his assistance. If anything, the President, who can barely conceal his consuming ambition for a second term, has joined in the agenda at sacrificing Oyegun at the promptings of former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu.
The governors on rampage
The helplessness on the part of the chairman and his National Working Committee (NWC), has created room for the governors to act as demi-gods in their various states.
There are even indications that Buhari is beholden to them in his quest for a return ticket, despite his falling health.
With some of the governors not having good rapport with their representatives at the National Assembly, there have been clashes of interest in many instances. Governors Rochas Okorocha (Imo) and Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna), fall into this league.
Some are said to have vowed that the legislators in opposing camps with them, would not be given return tickets to their positions. Lawmakers in the state houses of assembly, are equally targeted in the threat by the governors. And they are not taking the development lightly.
Therefore, for the vulnerable lawmakers and other chieftains of the party who foresee grave danger to their interest in the run-up to 2019 if the governors were allowed to have their way in the ward congresses, instigating a stalemate, was thus, seen as the only way to gain relevance or ensure that everyone lost out.
Governors who considered the congresses not going according to their permutations, also worked against the exercise.
Incidentally, the end to the confusion, is not in sight, concerned party members, lament. In fact, there are fears that what played out at the various congresses, were simply, indicators of the bigger picture in the APC internal politics as 2019 draws near.
Analysts, may, thus, be right in predicting more uncertain developments in the activities of the party in the days ahead.