…Implosion Looms as Governors Take Over Governing Party
…Aggrieved Members Threaten Showdown
…PDP Walks the Tightrope Over Zoning
…Smaller Parties Waiting to Benefit
February 06, (THEWILL) – A crisis of confidence and supremacy is rocking the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the politics of the 2023 general election continues to stare Nigerians in the face.
As though exchanging batons on the race to the upcoming general poll, both parties are jumping from one crisis to the other and heating the polity in a way that keeps the smaller parties on the alert and waiting on the wings to benefit.
Sooner had the opposition PDP settled its leadership crisis than the politics of zoning the presidency, spoken about in hushed tones, began to grow louder by the day. For now, Governor Nyesom Wike of River State and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar are at daggers drawn over the zoning contest.
The Governor Bala Mohammed-led PDP 2019 Election Review Committee had stirred the hornet’s nest over its decision to throw the presidential ticket of the party open to all the six geo-political zones in consideration of the new realities of fairness and geo-political interdependence in the country.
On the other hand, arrangements made towards the APC’s February 26, 2022 National Convention are creating ripples within the party, particularly since the controversies that trailed its congresses held last quarter of 2021, are yet to be resolved.
On Thursday, a ritual that exposed the extent of the division within the party reared its head again. The Nigeria Police condoned off the party’s national headquarters named after President Muhammadu Buhari shortly before the swearing-in of the executive officers of its state chapters.
Heavily armed policemen blocked the exit and entry points to the Buhari House national office of the party located on Blantyre Street, Abuja. That was not the first time the party’s national office would be shut to members and workers alike. It is a familiar party ritual since Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State became the head of the party. Last year, it happened twice.
In November 10, 2021, the APC had cause to draft security officials to its headquarters to forestall any breakdown of law and order as there were reports of a planned protest by members over the conduct of ward, local government and state congresses across the country. The national secretariat of the governing, but internally fractious APC is currently under siege by Nigerian police officers trying to prevent aggrieved party members from staging a protest.
In August 2020, the office came under police protection, following a planned demonstration at the secretariat of the party as a fallout from the division among leaders of the party, who questioned the unlawful and unconstitutional leadership of the Buni led -Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo, SAN and Kayode Ajulo, SAN, had disagreed with the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, over Buni and his committee’s continued stay in office after the Supreme Court affirmed Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu as Governor of Ondo State.
The Supreme Court had affirmed Rotimi Akeredolu as governor of Ondo, following the failure of the petitioner, Eyitayo Jegede, to join Buni in the governorship suit on the Ondo governorship election.
Keyamo had contended that Buni’s continued stay in office was in violation of Section 183 of the 1999 Constitution, which provides that a sitting governor may not hold any other executive post or paid job in any capacity during the time he is in office. Malami dismissed Keyamo’s submission as untenable and unwarranted.
Thursday’s repeat of the previous month’s ritual was therefore a sad reminder that the party was not only in serious crisis on many fronts, but also likely to run into deep trouble ahead of its National Convention on February 26, 2022, which is intended to formally elect officials of the party.
Thirty-four state excos were inaugurated on Thursday without Kano and Sokoto States, thereby sparking more protests from the factions across the states, especially in Oyo, Kwara, Delta, Osun, Enugu, Niger, Akwa Ibom, Kano and Abia States where parallel congresses were held in October 2021.
What is emerging from THEWILL’s investigation is a trend that may not augur well for the APC’s cohesion and continued dominance in 24 states.
The inaugurated state chairmen included Kingsley Ononogbu for Abia; Ibrahim Bilal for Adamawa; Augustine Ekanem for Akwa Ibom; Basil Ejike for Anambra; Babayo Misau for Bauchi; Dennis Otiotio for Bayelsa; Augustine Agada for Benue; Ali Dalori for Borno; Alphonsus Eba for Cross River; Omeni Sabotie for Delta, Stanley Emegha for Ebonyi; David Imuse for Edo; and Omotosho Ayodele for Ekiti.
Others are Ogochukwu Agballah for Enugu; Nitte Amangal for Gombe; Macdonald Ebere for Imo; Aminu Gumel for Jigawa; Emmanuel Jekada for Kaduna; Muhammed Sani for Katsina; Abubakar Kana for Kebbi; Abdullahi Bello for Kogi; Sunday Fagbemi for Kwara; Cornelius Ojelabi for Lagos; John Mamman for Nasarawa; Haliru Jikantoro for Niger and Yemi Sanusi for Ogun.
Others are Ade Adetimehin for Ondo; Adegboyega Famodun for Osun; Isaac Omodewu for Oyo; Rufus Bature for Plateau; Emeka Bekee for Rivers, Ibrahim El-Sudi for Taraba; Muhammed Gadaka for Yobe, Tukur Danfulani for Zamfara; and Abdulmalik Usman for FCT.
More Troubles Ahead For APC, PDP
The inauguration of the 34 State excos opened rather than healed old wounds that had been troubling the APC since it held its congresses in 2021. On the one hand, power has been consolidated in the hands of all the governors in APC governed states because their candidates, who emerged victorious in the recent congresses, were sworn-in as chairmen, as opposed to that of their rivals who held parallel congresses.
According to the party’s constitution, the governor is the recognised leader of the party in their respective states. It was for this reason that vote-catching Kano State was not included in the list. There, the courts have recognised the officials that emerged from the parallel congresses organised by former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau as against those organised by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.
Similarly, in Sokoto, the factions that emerged from the congresses are split between Senator Aliyu Wammako, considered as the leader of the party in the state, and Senator Ibrahim Gobir, Wammako’s arch enemy since his days as governor of the state when he allegedly denied Gobir a return ticket to the National Assembly.
In another vein, a different ball game played out in states that are not under the control of APC governors. As usual, party men loyal to the national leadership of the party, whose congresses were supervised by the party, carried the day. Abia State, where two factions of the party exist, is an example. Surprisingly, the new Chairman of the party in the state, Dr Kingsley Ononogbu, is not from the faction considered to have the support of the big wigs like the Senate Chief Whip, Orji Uzor Kalu, General Azubuike Ihejerika (Retd.), House of Reps member, Ben Kalu and the Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Uchechukwu Ogah. The party’s structure is in the hands of a two-time governorship aspirant on its platform, Mr Ikechi Emenike.
Rather than placing the structures of the party on a sound footing, last Thursday’s inauguration of party chairmen put the party under pressure, thereby casting a shadow over the planned National Convention scheduled for February 26, which the party hurriedly notified the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last Wednesday, two days to the expiration of the deadline.
Meanwhile, aggrieved party leaders and members in factions across the states are fighting for supremacy. From Zamfara where Governor Bello Matawale, who defected from the PDP to the APC recently, has taken over leadership of the party to the chagrin of the former APC Governor Abdulaziz Yari and Senator Kabiru Marafa to Sokoto, Kano, Osun and Ekiti, where governorship primaries have split the party down the middle, and Delta where Deputy Senate President Omo Agege’s point men have sidelined Keyamo and Kwara where the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed and Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq are still at loggerheads over control of the party, the story is the same.
National Secretary of the party, Senator John Akpan Udoedeghe, who stood in for Governor Buni during the inauguration of the Chairmen of state chapters on Thursday, refused to reply to the text message he requested when he could not answer his phone call from THEWILL on Friday. But a chieftain of the party from Ekiti State, Mr Adekunle Esan, said the party was yet to become one in words and in deeds.
He told THEWILL, “The Buni Committee has fixed a convention for this month and it is already having a K-leg. Generally, APC is not a party. I am a member of the APC, but I can say categorically that APC is not a party. It is just a conglomeration of people who think about themselves, who want to have power for power’s sake. They are not interested in the welfare of the people of this country.”
However, Mr Simbard Ogbuatu, Publicity Secretary of the party in Ebonyi State, hailed the swearing-in of the new party exco as a confirmation of the peaceful nature of the party.
“This has gone a long way to project APC in the state as one and united,” he told THEWILL on Thursday.
According to Ogbuatu, divisions in the party are “promoted in the social media.” But he described the inauguration of the state chairmen of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja as commendable. “I commend the national working committee led by His Excellency Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni for this,” he said.
PDP, APC State Chapters In Crises
The raging battle for control of PDP party structures in Ekiti State, since the acrimonious governorship primaries, shows how similar both parties are only managing to wade through their crises. In the dog fight are Senator Biodun Olujimi, former governors Ayodele Fayose and Segun Oni after Olabisi Kolawole emerged as the party’s candidate for the state’s June 18 governorship election. Olujimi, who was a one-time Deputy Governor to Fayose, has fallen apart with her former principal, while Oni, who once defected to the APC in 2014 and worked for the party in the 2019 general election that the APC won, is still eyed with suspicion by the Fayose camp since he defected to the PDP last year. The fallout from the three-cornered fight is giving the national leadership of the party a nightmare.
For the APC, immediately after the successful conclusion of the inauguration of 34 party excos in Abuja last Thursday, some state governors began to show their armed fists.
In Plateau State, the inauguration of the new state chairman of the APC, Rufus Bature, added fuel to the raging discord and rage of splinter groups and parallel interests within the party.
A solid test is the outcome of the primary elections conducted in Jos North/Bassa Federal Constituency and Pankshin South State Constituency last week. The results have only shown that there is intense bitterness and anger within the party and that the days ahead could come with more tempests and hostilities.
With about 300 delegates from the 30 wards in Jos North/Bassa Federal Constituency of Plateau State, APC had its crises deepened as the primary election to determine its candidate for the February 26 by-election in the Constituency was declared inconclusive last Wednesday.
Although the rerun of the primary election was held at the Secretariat of Bassa Local Government Council last Friday, it was largely boycotted, with many delegates, especially from Jos North, crying foul and complaining that the process lacked transparency and credibility, as well as pointing out that the entire exercise was manipulated and skewed to favour a predetermined contender, Abbey Aku, Governor Simon Lalong’s immediate past Commissioner for Commerce and Industry. Already, one of the aspirants in the primary, Suleiman Yahaya Kwande, has petitioned the National Secretariat of the APC, dismissing the rerun and noting that the electoral committee compromised and sold out.
THEWILL investigation reveals that a fortnight ago, it was reported that a group of APC moguls, who met in Gwol Hotel in the Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of the state, had perfected a plan to defect to the opposition PDP with thousands of their grassroots supporters. Among them is a former state chairman of the party, Letep Dabang, and two former Speakers of the State House of Assembly, Peter Azi, and Joshua Madaki. All those abandoning the APC complain of the high-handedness of Governor Lalong as the leader of the party in the state and lack of internal democracy.
In Ekiti State, where some aggrieved APC governorship aspirants accused Governor Kayode Fayemi of manipulating the outcome of the primaries to favour his candidate, anger has boiled over. Senator Opeyemi Bamidele and a House of Representatives member, Hon Femi Bamisile, vowed last Wednesday that the party would be taught a bitter lesson for what they described as impunity on the emergence of Biodun Oyebanji as the governorship candidate of the party for the June governorship poll in the state.
The lawmakers said, “We thought the election would be free and fair because we thought Dr Kayode Fayemi would not get involved in the things that would deprive the party of victory in a free and fair process and that he would provide a level playing ground. We will not leave this party, but that does not mean that the APC will not be taught a lesson… The party will be taught a lesson it will never forget.”
The scenario in Zamfara State is largely similar to that of Ekiti. Senator Marafa who had since settled his quarrel with former Governor Yari and tried to reorganise the party before Governor Matawale defected and turned the table on them, has vowed to also ‘‘teach the party one or two lessons.’’
The Publicity Secretary of Senator Marafa’s faction, Bello Bakyasuwa, told a national newspaper that the Matawalle APC faction was only wasting its time.
On why the faction did not go to Abuja for the inauguration, he replied, “We didn’t go to Abuja because of our pending court’s case, which will be heard on February 17. But I am telling you that any faction of our party that goes to Abuja for the inauguration is violating the court’s order because we have been directed by the court to maintain the status-quo.”
In Cross River State, where Governor Ben Ayade defected from the PDP to the APC along with Alphonsusu Ogar Eba, who was inaugurated on Thursday as state Chairman, there is relative peace for now. The thorny issue to be faced later is the issue of zoning, which may likely trigger a crisis between the old APC and the Ayade-led group.
Bayelsa State faces similar problems, but party officials are positive that peace will reign in the party, with the efforts of the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led Reconciliation Committee that is currently touring the afflicted states.
Barrister Ebiye Waripamo told this newspaper that though the party in the state remains peaceful, united and indivisible under the leadership of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources , Chief Timipre Sylva, the internal squabbles owing to disagreements over the congresses would be laid to rest with the inauguration of “our party chairman, Dr Denis Otiotio, preparatory to the February 26 sacrosanct National Convention.”
Asked how the parallel congresses that trailed the election of the state executive committees would be resolved, he said, “When the chairman returns from Abuja, we are believing that all aggrieved stakeholders would cooperate and work in unity with him to make a formidable body to prepare for the governorship election to take over power, come 2023 governorship election.”
In Ogun State, the faction loyal to former Governor Ibikunle Amosun, who is now a serving Senator, is keeping its next line of action to itself. Publicity Secretary of the Amosun faction of the state APC, Wole Elegbede, told THEWILL on Thursday that he had no comment when asked about his comment on the shutting out of his faction from Thursday’s inauguration in Abuja. The faction’s chairman, Derin Adebiyi, had earlier stated that his faction was not invited to the ceremony in Abuja.
For the PDP, the zoning of the presidency is already tearing the party apart. National Chairman, Prof Iyorchia Ayu, was forced to issue a statement to call to order its leaders from the North who had been saying the party had zoned the presidency to the North. A furious Governor Wike had to talk down to media mogul and founder of AIT and Ray Power, Chief Alegho Raymond Dokpesi, who had been campaigning around the party’s state chapter that only a presidential candidate from the North, preferably Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, would help the party return to the power it lost to the APC in 2015. (See our lead story on the Politics page).
A top government official, who is a chieftain of the PDP, told THEWILL on the condition of anonymity that the PDP is really walking on a tightrope as its chances at the polls over the presidential zoning controversy looks dicey.
“Our situation is really bad and our chances at the polls may just be slim for the presidency. The zoning controversy is tearing the party. If we eventually zone the presidency to the South, there will be a problem of rejection of the candidate from the North,” he said, adding, “If we zone it to the South, the North will also reject the southern candidate, thus putting the party in a dilemma.”
The PDP chieftain believes that the APC still has a better chance if it decides to zone the presidency to the South.
However, the PDP has carefully schemed and manoeuvred through its leadership crisis to secure a national leadership during its recent national convention. It is not sure if the APC will do the same on February 26.
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
