RUMBLES IN THE PDP AND THE APC
BY DONS EZE
This may not be the best of times for the two major political parties in Nigeria – the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. The two parties are currently engulfed in internal crisis, which could make or mar their journey towards the 2023 general elections.
The PDP which was in power at the centre for sixteen uninterrupted years, suddenly found itself in opposition following its failure to win the Presidency in 2015, but was unable to manage its failure. Since then, the PDP has been from one crisis to the other.
First, following the sudden resignation of its national chairnan, Adamu Muazu, who led it to a catastrophic election, the PDP found it difficult to pick one person among its fold who could replace him, but imported a “foreigner”, Ali Modu Sherrif, a chieftain of an opposing political party, to be its national chairman, and the man messed up the party. But after a long drawn battle that latter ended at the Supreme Court, some elders of the party came together and set up a caretaker committee that midwifed the present PDP leadership.
Many people heaved a sigh of relief and looked forward for the PDP to play the role expected of it as main opposition political party, to put the ruling APC administration on its toes, due to its lacklustre performance. Though the PDP made some appreciable gains in the 2019 governorship election by winning some states from the APC, it nevertheless failed to win the Presidency, which was the ultimate prize.
Many members and sympathizers of the party across the country had thought PDP would consolidate on the modest gains it made in 2019 general election, and then put forward visible plans to oust the ruling APC in power in 2023, but they failed to see any positive sign on the ground. Rather, what they saw was that many people were leaving the PDP and joining the ruling party, the APC, including three sitting governors.
The people were disappointed. The resultant outcome was upheaval in the PDP, with some of its prominent members calling for the immediate sack of the national chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus, and members of his executive, even when the national convention of the party where new officers would be elected was only four months away.
This was followed by the sudden resignation of seven deputy national officers of the party. That was when some sympathetic onlookers in the melodrama began to sing requiem to the once Number One political party in Africa.
At present, both the PDP Board of Trustees, and the Governors elected on the platform of the party, are making frantic efforts to see how they could rescue the sinking ship.
As for the ruling APC, it is a time bomb waiting to explode. The APC which is a patchwork of expedient, a marriage of convinience of four political parties: the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC; the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN; the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP; and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has always gravitated towards implosion, but for President Muhammadu Buhari who is holding its tiny string.
While the party had progressively swallowed up elements of ANPP and APGA within its fold, the relationship between the two other remaining camps, the CPC and the ACN, is like that between the cat and the mouse.
Initially, while the CPC camp occupied the government, the ACN camp was in charge of the party structure. But through deft political manouvering and arm twisting, the CPC camp has succeeded in snatching the party structure from the ACN camp. That was when the Oshiomole led National Working Committee of APC was unceremoniously sacked and a Caretaker Committee led by Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, set up to run the affairs of the APC.
Since then, there has been cold war between the CPC and the ACN elements in the APC. The matter was not helped by the recent Supreme Court decision in respect of the Ondo Governorship Election Petition, where it a sitting Governor is running the affairs of the APC was faulted.
Worried by that apex court’s decision, President Muhammadu Buhari who is currently on medical vacation in London, directed his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, to meet with other lawyers in the cabinet and look into its implication ahead of the planned congresses of the party.
While the VP and most of the other lawyers in the cabinet reportedly advised against going ahead with the planned congresses, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, overruled them, and ordered that the congresses should go ahead. Vice President Osinbajo belongs to the ACN camp of the APC, while the Attorney General, like President Buhari, and the Caretaker Committee Chairman, Mai Mala Buni, are of the CPC element.
Nobody knows what the court will say in future about the congresseswhich have been held. Already an APC member is in court over the matter. We are waiting. But whichever way, the “cold war” in the APC, will certainly burst in the open, sooner or later.
Dr. Dons Eze, KSJI
