Managing APC’s house of confusion By Rotimi Fasan

Gbajabiamila, Dogara, Saraki and Lawan

THE much expected meeting of the National Executive Committee of the All Progressives Congress,APC, finally held last weekend. The meeting was aimed at resolving the National Assembly leadership crisis that has divided the ruling APC down the middle. Since June 9 when what increasingly appears like a renegade segment of the APC, led by Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, took on the leadership of the party, things haven’t been the same again in the APC.

After leaders of the APC under the chairmanship of John Odigie-Oyegun had exhausted all avenues to assert control over the rebels in their fold, all hopes were pinned on President Mohammadu Buhari. While Buhari has reportedly made it clear that he would not interfere in how members of the National Assembly installed their leaders, he had also made it clear in the wake of the leadership crisis precipitated by the emergence of Saraki and Dogara as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives respectively, that he was all in support of the notion that the party is superior to any individual member or group within it. In other words, he would not support any rebellion within their fold.

For without his party support he will soon discover just how vulnerable he is. To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Macbeth, for Buhari to be thus (i.e. be president) is nothing but to be thus (be president) safely. The safety of his presidency may be as good as the kind and quality of support he enjoys from his party members, particularly those he must work with in the National Assembly. Buhari, therefore, cannot afford to be indifferent to happenings among members of his party in the National Assembly and elsewhere.Thus, it was to him that everyone else in the party and Nigerians in general looked after the warring factions within the APC spurned all entreaties to tow party line. Buhari’s silence in the face of the crisis rocking his party has been viewed differently by Nigerians. While some believed his silence is a tongue-in-cheek endorsement of the June 9 coup, others considered it a sign of political maturity. But in Nigeria where principles are the first casualty in any contest for office, Buhari’s maturity might be an open invitation to political annihilation.

But what really can he do outside pleading with members of his party and appealing to their common interest and the interest of Nigerians as he did at the NEC meeting? Now his words (at least as at the time of writing this) seem not to be having the right effect, what else is there for him to do? What can he do? Wield the big stick? Perhaps, that may be the only way out for  him now- to use his presidential powers selectively like an Obasanjo, or in the draconian manner of his former self as a soldier.

Either way, he won’t look too good. But he would end up being a lame duck leader with nothing to show as president if he wants to look good. His presidency is imperiled for as long as the crisis in his party remains.

He has called his party members not to throw away their hard won victory at the 2015 polls or disappoint Nigerians who voted for them. His assertion of party supremacy seems only to have appealed to the Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila faction. The Saraki/Dogara group didn’t look impressed if the grim look on their faces, as Buhari spoke, and their reported response since then in the media are of any indication.

Saraki and Dogara’s leadership were facilitated by their alliance with the PDP. It is for this simply reason and nothing greater that they agreed to share leadership positions in the National Assembly with the PDP.

It is just a matter of chance that this sharing formula assumes a zoning complexion. Otherwise, both Saraki and Dogara are no more selfless than Lawan and Gbajabiamila and their party leaders are any more consumed by a winner-takes-it-all spirit. The insistence of these men on a zoning principle that allows opposition elements in their fold and against the dictates of their party is simply because it suits their design for now.

This is the point that eludes those who flippantly compare what happened in the National Assembly on June 9 to the manner the Bola Tinubu faction of the Action Congress of Nigeria supported Aminu Tambuwal against Mulikat Akande in 2011. Both Akande and Tambuwal were of the same party. Ike Ekweremadu is of the PDP, making him look like a mole in the fold of the APC. Both Saraki and Dogara are in a terrible fix to reverse or revise their agreement with the PDP. They cannot do so without appearing to be betrayers, utterly without loyalty or principle.

This is what their opponents in the APC refuse to acknowledge even though they cannot claim to be strangers to such deals. As politicians they must recognise this and move on or continue to plunge their party into avoidable trouble. Politics is nothing without deals.

The APC must accept that Saraki and Dogara have outsmarted them for now, while they seek other ways to rein in the excesses of their erring members in the future. Party supremacy and discipline is not only enforceable when there are porks to share in form of principal offices of the National Assembly. This is the time for the APC to stop holding Nigerians to ransom, move on and stop beating a dead horse that will only alienate both Saraki, Dogara and their supporters even further, thereby driving them into the waiting hands of the PDP.

It is abominable for Saraki and Dogara to continue to defy their party by aligning with opposition politicians even after their emergence as leaders of the upper and lower chambers of the National Assembly. But the only way to stop their rebellion is for leaders of the APC to accept the status quo and guard their erring members against opening their party doors to opposition politicians again.

It is easier as matters stand for the APC leaders to accept the reality on the ground than to continue to chase after a long gone animal by insisting on a change in the present composition of the leadership of the National Assembly. They must seek other ways, means, time and place of measuring Saraki and Dogara’s loyalty to their party than their earlier romance with the PDP which could only get more brazen for as long as this struggle persists.  Had the APC leaders been more cautious in their handling of Saraki and Dogara the present principal officers’ debacle would probably not have happened at all.

VANGUARD

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