He who fetches an ant-infested firewood, has invited lizards to a feast. – an Igbo proverb.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is going into this year’s general elections badly wounded, and as a divided house.
In virtually all the 36 states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, the APC is factionalized, with parallel executive committees working against each other.
In some states, the prospect of the APC participating in the forthcoming general elections looks very bleak and dim by the day.
Both the courts and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have helped in compounding the problems of the APC, by wielding the big stick, when they found it necessary.
The ruling party found itself in this sorry state of affair due to inability to manage its affairs, arising primarily from the various primary elections where it sought to select officers to run its affairs as well as those who would fly the party flag for various elective positions.
In Zamfara and Rivers States, the APC is currently not on the INEC’s ballot papers, and therefore may have been excluded from participating in this year’s elections. This was because the party in these two states was alleged not to have conducted valid primary elections.
Just few days to the elections, the courts have sacked APC governorship candidates in Enugu and Cross River states, arising from litigations by rival candidates of the party.
Elsewhere, and in many other states of the country, APC members are in the courts, or are up in arms, fighting each other.
In Imo and Ogun states, their own case is very precarious. While the APC governors of these two states had failed to secure the ticket of the party for their godsons to contest the governorship election in their respective states, they decided to push these their godsons to other political parties where they picked their gubernatorial tickets, with the two governors staying put in the APC, perhaps, to play the spoilers game.
Thus, while these two governors have their one leg in the APC, they have their other one leg in the other political parties where their godsons are contesting gubernatorial elections.
The absurdity of this venture clearly played out in these two states when President Muhammadu Buhari came to flag off his Presidential election campaign.
In Imo State, while Governor Rochas Okorocha had told his people to vote for the APC Presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, he, at the same time, told the same people to support the gubernatorial ambition of his son-in-law, who is in another political party.
Thus, when a bewildered President Buhari was to talk, he was confused. He was neither here nor there. He merely told the people to “vote according to your conscience”!
The people of Ogun State had no time for pretenses. They showed their anger immediately the President came there to solicit for votes. They knew where their Governor stood – one leg in APC, where he is contesting a Senatorial election, and the other leg in another political party, where his godson is contesting a gubernatorial election.
Thus, they did not even wait for President Buhari to take his seat and settle down, when they decided to react, to vent their spleen against the inanities of the APC leadership by pelting stones at them, to the embarrassment of Mr. President. And everything went haywire, and ended in confusion.
With the epic battle coming up in just some few days ahead, how will the APC make it with bruises all over its body? Supposing the party fails to make it, it will have no other person to blame, but to blame itself due to its self-afflicted wound.
