By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
Some weeks before the recent presidential election, a former governor in the frontline of the campaign of the All Progressives Congress, APC reportedly went to the Lagos home of a national leader of the party and prostrated before him, begging him that they should not quarrel over some then emerging issues. The leader had acquiesced as both men resolved to paper over the issues between them and focus on the main target of forcing out their common enemy, that is, President Goodluck Jonathan out of office.Now, having successfully uprooted the vagaries of President Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party, PDP from power, those issues that were papered over have now been exposed as the new ruling party seeks albeit with much frustration to forge a common ground.
Nothing speaks of the seeming dissonance in the new ruling party that as at yesterday, the new administration which had almost two months to prepare for governance is yet to name critical personnel to operate the levers of government.
An explanation for the dithering procrastination has been adduced by administration sympathisers to the delayed submission of the handover notes from the Jonathan administration.
However, few are fooled given the cacophony of voices that has shadowed the affairs of the APC since its takeover of the administration and the National Assembly.
President Muhammadu Buhari
Even the takeover of the National Assembly is suspect, given the humiliating defeat of the party’s preferred candidates for the leadership of the National Assembly. Whereas the party sought the pair of Senators Ahmad Lawan and George Akume for the office of Senate President and Deputy Senate President, the pair of the APC’s Senator Bukola Saraki and the PDP’s Senator Ike Ekweremadu emerged for the office of Senate President and Deputy Senate President upon the faux pas caused by the party.
In the House leadership contest in which the party actively participated, the party’s preferred choices of Femi Gbajabiamila and Mohammed Moguno as speaker and deputy speaker, were defeated by the unofficial candidates of the party, Yakubu Dogara and Lashun Yusuf respectively.
The development has inevitably thrown the party into a crisis.
Remarkably, the president, some claim, is believed to be angry with the way and manner the new leadership emerged and has yet to set eyes on any of the four presiding officers. It is arguably the first time since the advent of the Fourth Republic that the president of the country has not met physically with the leaders of the National Assembly at the commencement of a presidential cycle.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu was understood to have told an online medium that the National Assembly leaders have not sought an audience with the president.
However, Senator Saraki was in the Abeokuta residence of former President Olusegun Obasanjo last weekend where he was understood to have sought the assistance of the elder-statesman in intervening on behalf of the new National Assembly leadership in stemming the crisis of confidence between the National Assembly and the administration. Sources, however, say that the presidential beef may be more directed to the Senate than to the House given the awkwardness of the emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu from the opposition PDP as the Deputy Senate President.
The crisis inevitably brings to question assertions by the president on his inauguration of his determination to work with anyone that emerged in the National Assembly leadership contest. The well acclaimed phrase by the president, “I belong to everyone, I belong to nobody,” is as such now enmeshed in a crisis of confidence.
The developments within the administration and the National Assembly inevitably puts the fact that the ruling APC still has a number of issues to resolve.
Among the issues are who gets what, the determination of a leader, Buhari’s aspiration for a second term among others.
The problem of sharing
The snide remark of antagonists of the APC is that the party was only united by the common fascination of uprooting the PDP and that the leaders of the party would fall out when it comes to sharing. “This is what happens when thieves come to share their loot,” some PDP stakeholders have said sarcastically.
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The APC has remarkably showed itself not to be gifted in sharing the cake, an art that was masterfully done by the PDP while in power.
The problem with sharing started immediately after the presidential election. The leadership of the party failed to agree on the distribution of the national offices. An initial agreement worked out by the National Working Committee, NWC which showed the allocation of principal offices of the National Assembly to the various geopolitical zones became the subject of intrigues.
It was that failure of the party to take charge that led to the crisis that saw the opposition PDP deciding on how the four top positions in the National Assembly would go. Pitiably for the ruling party and to the glory of the opposition, the permutations of the PDP prevailed over that of the ruling party.
Now, the APC has to contend with how to share the remaining eight offices in the National Assembly – leader, deputy leader, Whip and deputy whip – in the Senate and the House.
Understandably, party partisans want the loyal Senators Lawan and Akume and Gbajabiamila and Moguno, who lost out even after toeing the party position on the issues to be accommodated in the leadership.
However, it is a Machiavellian principle of power not to sustain your rivals in a power game, and hence the stiff opposition from loyalists of Saraki and Dogara to the pressure from the party for Lawan and Gbajabiamila to be appointed the respective leaders of the Senate and the House.
How the APC decides on this would be crucial, and it is the second test facing an already bruised party.
Suggestions to the effect that in the Tambuwal House that Mulikat Akande, who competed for the position of speaker was rewarded with the office of leader fail to measure in the case of Dogara and Gbajabiamila. Akande was practically no match for Aminu Tambuwal in the leadership contest of 2011.
The 2019 question?
The 2019 presidential election is almost four years away, but almost every political step taken by party stakeholders today is defined by the machinations of the contenders for the ticket of the party.
Indeed, the dogged opposition by many party leaders to Saraki’s aspiration for the office of Senate President was essentially based on the fact that he was seen as too ambitious who would use the office of Senate President to the presidency in 2019.
Remarkably, Senator Rabiu Kwankwanso, one of the major threats against Saraki is also believed to have his own presidential ambition and there were suggestions in political circles that Kwankwanso opposed Saraki simply so that his rival’s political credentials would not be enhanced.
Governor Aminu Tambuwal also believed to be another presidential aspirant was believed to have led the Dogara campaign for speaker for the purpose of getting a quid pro quo from Dogara ahead of 2019.
All the calculations, however, fall short of the uncertain 2019 ambition of President Buhari.
That like many other issues facing the party are yet unresolved. How the party resolves such issues would give it stability and structure needed to deliver its promises.
APC: Who is National Leader?
Dogara and Saraki
Given that the APC has yet to define the official status of some of its major stakeholders such as President Buhari, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun, Chief Ogbonnaya Onu among others.
Many have predicted that sooner or later that Buhari and Tinubu would fall apart. However, such suggestions betray the fact that Buhari is a man who is known to keep his promises and a gentleman officer.
Only a few in the party deny the fact that Buhari and Tinubu were together on the Lawan for Senate President project. That fact is underlined by assertions that the majority of the Buhari boys in the Senate from the North tilted their support towards Lawan.
In an interview two weeks before the presidential election, Aisha, wife of the president had praised the sacrifices of Tinubu towards the Buhari campaign saying: “My husband, General Muhammadu Buhari has been contesting presidential elections for over a decade now, but this particular election is unique because our leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu jettisoned his personal interest for the sake of Nigeria,” she said.
But following the emergence of Buhari as president, the question as to who is now leader of the party is one that is bound to interest many stakeholders. Would Aisha still refer to Tinubu as the leader or would she remember the sacrifices, political and otherwise marshalled by Tinubu for the success of her husband?
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