Scheduled meetings of the statutory organs of the ruling party and the CCT trial of the country’s Number Three citizen, Senate President Bukola Saraki indicate stormy days ahead for the APC this week.
The inauguration of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), earlier scheduled for tomorrow was last night believed to have been deferred again, a development that further stretched the tension in the party.
APC is, however, scheduled to progress with its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting scheduled for later in the week.
The postponement of the BoT meeting again further casts focus on the prospects of the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun who has come under pressure from the three major power blocs in the party.
APC was founded in 2013 as a merger of three major political parties – the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
The merger was subsequently embraced by five governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who broke away from their party to join the new mega-party.
The present power configuration has, however, lately been redefined into three with the ACN bloc led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the old CPC bloc led by President Muhammadu Buhari and the nPDP bloc led by the duo of Senator Bukola Saraki and Atiku Abubakar.
Remarkably, the differing political inclinations of the three major groups have combined to put the party in a seeming state of inertia.
APC has been unable to find a new party spokesman following the appointment of the veteran opposition spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed as Minister of Information and Culture.
That essentially is because the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Timi Frank was stopped from succeeding him upon concerns of his past vitriolic assertions against party leaders, notably, Odigie-Oyegun and Mohammed. Even more, statutory organs of the party have failed to meet.
The tension in the party worsened after it emerged Sunday that plans for the inauguration of the BoT may now be put on hold.
Besides the failure to inaugurate the BoT, the party’s other main organ, the National Executive Committee (NEC) has held epileptic meetings, a fact that underlines the fault lines in the ruling party.
That fault line is to be further tested this week when the Code of Conduct Tribunal ruling on the case against the President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki is decided.
Saraki had repeatedly argued that his problems are traceable to his emergence as the president of the Senate.
His associates whisper that the case against him is fuelled by the ACN tendency in the party as they claim that the case would not have been brought to trial if he had not emerged as Senate President.
Remarkably, the major tendencies in the party also quietly blame the national chairman of the party, Odigie-Oyegun for not supporting their causes.
Apparently placed between the devil and the deep blue sea, Odigie-Oyegun has had to trudge a difficult path of not succumbing to the desire of the two contending power blocs, as such winning enemies on both sides and no friends at all.
The defunct ACN wing of the party blamed the national chairman for failing to uphold what they claimed as the party’s decision on the zoning of the principal offices of the National Assembly.
They believe that under him, Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara messed up the party and that he, Odigie-Oyegun failed to sanction them.
Complicating the case for Odigie-Oyegun is also the claim by associates of Saraki that the national chairman has allowed himself to be locked in the grips of the old ACN which produced him as national chairman.
So far, the third major power bloc, the old CPC bloc led by President Buhari has kept itself away from the fray.
With the postponement of the BoT meeting scheduled for this week, the party may only have postponed the evil day.
-Vanguard
