All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders have set the party on a self-destructive course. At best, the party’s apparent U-turn from its initial progressive course is disappointing to its most ardent supporters. At worst, they predict without a second thought the party’s implosion into its four legacy constituents.
Whether its Board of Trustees (BoT) and National Working Committee (NWC) are aware of the gathering storm or not is irrelevant. The reality is that Nigerians elected the APC to give them good governance. And the party with the change mantra must hit the ground running at the speed of thought.
Nigerians are bogged down by insecurity induced by violent, armed militant groups nationwide, including Boko Haram insurgents, failure to rescue kidnapped 219 Chibok schoolgirls, unemployment, poverty, a paltry 3,800mw epileptic power supply, hardly quality schools at all levels, dilapidated infrastructure, among other man-made disasters bad leaders had imposed on the country.
Needless to say, no matter how well-intentioned and Herculean his capacity, President Muhammadu Buhari cannot alone solve a single problem. He needs the inputs of a harmonious National Assembly (NASS) for synergistic success.
That is why it shocks and disgusts even APC supporters about the time-wasting bickering power tussle between the party leaders and its national legislators, some of whom turned dishonourable pugilists in the House of Representatives on Thursday, June 25.
The concatenation of muscle-flexing follies which gripped the party since June 6 would not befit illiterates. Since then, the APC, which was commendably smooth-flying on auto pilot and became a magnet attracting all and sundry, suddenly hit turbulence and its leaders totally lost control.
In retrospect, on June 6, the leaders invited its NASS-elect members to a meeting. At the venue, they told the lawmakers it was a mock election for the party’s endorsements for NASS leadership positions.
Before then, every interested lawmaker was canvassing privately for the prestigious and powerful Senate president and House speaker as well as their deputies’ posts.
Soon, the bifurcation emerged between the Like Minds and the Unity Forum groups of senators. Predictably, Senator Bukola Saraki and Rep. Yakubu Dogara emerged as Like Minds’ front runners vying with Senator Ahmad Lawan and Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila for Unity Forum.
Then came the credible, unconfirmed reports that Unity Forum’s pair were party leader Bola Tinubu’s favourites.
When the Like Minds suspected that their opponents were briefed before the June 6 mock elections, their protests began. When the party leaders overruled them, they walked out. The APC leaders felt triumphant like uninformed illiterates.
That was the faux pas. Intra-party conflicts are handled differently from inter-party ones. Democracy allows boycott as consent in inter-party dissent.
In the former, consensus is indispensable: Those trenchantly opposed to any proposal must be persuaded with the force of arguments till they are convinced to move to indifference state even if they still disagree; indifferent members must be moved to active supporters or stay put.
Illiterate APC leaders were unaware. Triumphalism made them mistake walkout for fatalistic resignation.
The day of reckoning came on June 9. APC leaders and their Unity Forum lawmakers were again meeting at the International Conference Centre when the bad news got to them that Saraki had formed an alliance with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and he was elected the Senate President.
Outfoxed, some Unity Forum lawmakers rushed back into the Senate chambers only to vote for the victory of Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu from the opposition PDP. For the first time since the Fourth Republic started in 1999, bipartisan leadership of NASS is the reality.
APC leaders cried foul. They ranted and raged about party indiscipline, treachery, contempt for party supremacy though they only had party wish, among others. But they lack the numbers to effect democratic change.
Since then, nursing their bruised egos took centre stage to the exclusion of the good governance Nigerians elected them to provide on the “Change” mantra.
Worse still, contrary to expectations, out of cowardice or intellectual laziness or both, the party’s BoT and NWC have been looking on like spectators at a football match, refused to talk truth to power among their colleagues in the party’s leadership.
Buhari stood aside prudently waiting for the NASS to elect whoever is good for the legislature. He kept his promise that he would work with whoever emerged as their leaders. Consequently, he congratulated Saraki and Dogara for their victory.
Now, the noisy, cacophonous APC leaders who failed to do their homework on June 6 and got the failed grade on June 9 have resorted to extra-legislative deeds to wrest power from the victorious Saraki and his mocking, jubilant PDP supporters who now have one leg in the ruling party’s boardroom.
The wake up call to the APC, its national leader, Bola Tinubu, and National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, is raising alarm. Power drunkenness, ego-buttering and muscle-flexing have replaced rational choices in APC’s miscalculations.
Saraki and Dogara are no more only card-carrying APC members. They have since June 9 become bi-partisan NASS leaders. The party’s blundering attempt at imposing leaders on the NASS has failed. That is the reality they must live with.
Any blustering attempt to sanction or expel the leaders, as we cautioned before, would factionalise the party for the judiciary to plunge the APC back into opposition – if push comes to shove and the current leaders defect with their supporters to the PDP.
That scenario may once again cripple the good governance Nigeria needs and Nigerians voted for as Change.
Buhari needs competent ministers and harmonious legislature to govern well. The opposition PDP, which does not hide its scheming to throw out the APC in 2019, cannot take over the NASS.
Some say powerful APC leaders will cause havoc if Buhari gets involved. But the destabilisation of the NASS is only a precursor to government instability. So, Buhari, as the most powerful leader, must call the party leaders to order.
They must stop their ego fight with NASS leaders. Moreover, they must clean up the mess they caused and restore APC’s peace and unity before both chambers resume on July 21. That is the party leaders’ only assignment for now.
On October 30, 2000, some lawmakers returned to the public glare of the House dais about N4 million of bribe money by a corrupt Olusegun Obasanjo Presidency selectively fighting corruption to impeach then Speaker Ghali Na’Abba.
Hopefully, there would not be a repeat of such time-wasting era of bribing legislators to destabilise the NASS and impeach their leaders in continuation of politicking at the expense of governance.