- For the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), things have fallen apart, and centre can no longer hold. There is fire on the mountain. The APC has become a house divided against itself. There is trouble in the house of the party. There is commotion everywhere. All over the place, members of the APC are up in arms against one another.
The venues for various APC congresses where the leaders of the party were supposed to emerge, have turned into theatres of war, or battle fields. Dangerous weapons of varying descriptions, guns, cudgels, stones, cutlasses, etc., flew around, which had resulted to several deaths and bodily injuries on many members of the party.
Members of APC who formerly prided themselves as belonging to one indivissible family have now turned into sworn enemies. And many party chieftains no longer see eye to eye with one another. In virtually every state in the country, parallel congresses were held, which led to the emergence of different party leaderships. All over the place, it’s war, bickering, and what have you.
In Rivers State, Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amechi, and his former political ally, Senator Magnus Abe, are up in arms against each other. In the process, they desecrated the sanctify of the courts by sending thugs to physically attack judicial officers.
In Imo State, the Imo Coaltion led by Senators Ifeanyi Ararume, Osita Izunaso, and Hope Uzodima, have succeeded in wrestling down the boastful Rochas Okorocha. Rochas who failed to get President Muhammadu Buhari to help him out after his first defeat, later went to court to stop the entire exercise. He also failed as the coalition had enthroned their preferred party leadership. Rochas is now reported to be running from pillar to post, and seeking whether APGA will give him accommodation.
In Enugu State, Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, and Special Adviser to the President on Law Reform, Juliet Ibekaku, held their parallel congress at Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu, where they elected Deacon Okey Ogbodo as their chairman, while the other faction led by the Director General of Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu, former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, and former Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime, who staged a work out, later settled for incumbent APC chairman in the state, Ben Nwoye, as their own chairman.
In Ebonyi State, Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, and Senator Julius Ucha slugged it out by installing their separate party executives, just as former Abia State Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu refused to agree with the mainstream party in his state as he proceeded to hold his own parallel congress.
The APC congress in Ondo State even turned bloody, leaving one person dead, while parallel congresses were held in Oyo, Kwara, Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Zamfara, Jigawa, Kogi, Adamawa, Zamfara and Delta states, as well as Lagos State, which everybody thought was in the firm grips of APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinibu.
Even the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, Katsina, was not spared, as parallel congresses were held there. That’s how bad the situation in the party has degenerated.
Perhaps, the next line of action for those who might not be comfortable with whatever decision the national leadership of APC may take would be the law courts or outright dumping of the party for other political parties.
APC is a patchwork of expidients hurriedly put together for the sole purpose of ousting PDP from power. The party is composed of individuals and groups who have nothing in common, people with divergent views and ideologies. That’s why there have been bickerings and quarrellings among themselves.
No doubt, those in the helm of affairs in the APC had earlier envisaged the current happenings in the party. That was why some of them had opted for tenure elongation for all the party executives across board.
But then, there was a superior argument of the illegality of the action, if congresses were not held as enshrined in both the party’s Constitution and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The APC thus found itself in between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Since dead or tail, it would lose, the party, therefore, had no option than to go into what it considered would be the lesser evil, that is, the congresses.
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