With the violent drama on the floor of the House Representatives on Thursday last week, it is now common knowledge that the All Progressive Congress (APC) was ill-prepared for the leadership of Nigeria. The party seems to have been more interested in ridiculing the PDP instead of preparing for leadership.
Over the years, the several parties that later melted into the confusion called APC had cried for power and did everything within its might to grab it. One month after its inauguration as the ruling party, the APC does not seem to know what to do with the enormous powers it has inherited.
Both the elected and the appointed members of the party have become as clueless as the word clueless itself. The party’s actions and inactions are making the PDP leadership in the last 16 years look like an angelic era.
President Muhammadu Buhari whose sensational victory at the polls raised hopes among millions of Nigerians has been made to look like a commanding officer without troops. He is the president of Nigeria but is neither the leader nor the chairman of his party.
To escape the confusion in his party, he went visiting his farm a week ago. When I saw the pictures of the president inspecting his farm, I told myself: at least he has a troop to command here. As a shepherd, his cows and sheep will obey his orders.
Some of us knew this problem will arise as soon as Buhari takes office. It was like a bomb waiting to explode. Here is a man with all the best intensions for leading his country; or so I assume. He knew clearly that under democracy, the only way to attain that goal would be through a political process.
He needed to join a political party; win nomination to contest for the office; participate in the contest; win and actualise his goal. He also knew that the process will not be as simple as that because money would be required to oil the wheel of that process. Unfortunately, he had to depend on others for the funding.
There is no election in the world that does not demand huge expenditure. Both President Barak Obama and his Republican Party opponent in the last election spent more than a billion dollars each during the campaigns. When you count a billion dollars in naira, you will know that we are still many miles behind.
Buhari knew that if he must become a king, then he needed to align with the kingmakers who desperately needed a king but who themselves could not become one. He must have been well tutored by what a friend told Catherine Adams, wife of the reluctant American President, John Quincy Adams, in 1824.
Adams had earlier told a political ally who persuaded him to be “more active in pre-election jockeying” that “if chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my sir.” He was quoting Macbeth in one of William Shakespeare’s thriller.
In response, a friend advised Adams’ wife to tell the husband that “kings are made by politicians and newspapers; and the man who sits down waiting to be crowned, whether by chance or just right will go bareheaded all his life.” With such advice, Adams set out to meet the politicians and got crowned when the newspapers endorsed him. He became the President of the United States.
The story of Adams has been reflected in Buhari’s political journey. When Buhari finally made up his mind to clamour for political power, he was pushed to join forces with people whose vision and mission in politics were at variance with his. However, he needed their company because of their financial might.
Buhari’s aim was to clinch the Presidency and serve the people. The route to achieving that goal did not matter much. Today, the investors in that project are trying to frustrate him; the same thing they did to President Goodluck Jonathan. They are trying to call the shots while he takes the bullets.
The crises that have engulfed the National Assembly since its inauguration can be traced to one issue: the leadership of the APC. Here is a party of strange bedfellows; a party that is just like the Nigerian National Football Team where players are assembled from different football clubs around the world.
Each of them is a star. Individually, they can illuminate the football pitch with dazzling performances and draw applause from the crowd. However, what they lack is the team spirit because in football, unlike lawn tennis or golf, individuals don’t win matches, a team does.
From All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Political Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and some run-away members of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the party called APC was formed. As soon as INEC got the groups registered as one political party, APC—as they then became—hit the ground running. They sweated and somersaulted and found themselves in the bedroom of power.
There was no time for blending. There was no time for fitness test. The rules of engagement were not articulately spelt out. Everyone had one mission: let’s pursue PDP out of power, and we can sort ourselves out. Through foul and crooked means, the mission was accomplished.
Having won the war, the spoilt of that victory is about sending the APC to an early grave. In a-not-too-far future, except the leaders of APC wake up and crown Buhari as the leader of the party, APC may soon become history. Both Saraki and Dogara may decide to return to the PDP. Watch my lips.