APC’s new mega-headache on november 28, 2013 at 1:12
am in people & politics By Ochereome Nnanna
It is a great misnomer to call
the joining of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, by
the G.7 and other rebel PDP
members two days ago a “merger”. It was more of a
defection. The difference
between these two political
expressions is clear. A defection means the transfer
of membership, belonging or
loyalty from one platform to
another. A defector drops his
old individuality and assumes
the identity of his new group. A merger, on the other hand,
can be illustrated with the
political action that led to the
birth of the APC. Three
separate registered political
parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the Congress
for Progressive Change, CPC
and the All Nigerian Peoples
Party, ANPP, shed all their old
identities and assumed a
completely new one. Some of the faces at the
merger includes Ogbonaya Onu,
nPDP chairman, Kawu Baraje,
Senator Bukola Saraki,
Governor Rotimi Amaechi,
former Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu, chair of the APC, Chief
Bisi Akande, The three parties formally held
their respective valedictory
national congresses and
announced the end of their old
parties in favour of the new
one. The leadership of the main parties sat down,
negotiated, shared power and
offices and evolved a new flag,
symbols, constitution. But the PDP defectors simply
emptied into the APC,
unconditionally, it would seem.
By so doing, the size of the APC
has ballooned (at least, on
paper) from 11 to 16 governors compared to PDP’s 18
(assuming that Governors Sule
Lamido and Babangida Aliyu
are now rated “non-aligned”);
48 senators as compared to 58
of PDP and (as some newspapers put it) and 199
members of the House of Reps
compared to 147 of PDP). Watchers of these unfolding
monumental political events
must be dumbfounded by the
PDP’s rather cool attitude to
the threat of these defections.
Every expectation by the rebels that their grievances, whether
real or contrived, would be
entertained in any way was
calmly rebuffed. It was the
rebels that were hungry for a
deal, but the Bamanga Tukur- led PDP simply refused to play
ball. When the President returned
from his recent London visit, he
parried an opportunity to meet
with them. He pretended that
his six-hour plane ride from
London was exhausting, when we know that a politician
would plunge head-long into a
crucial meeting if he
considered it of import to his
political survival. Meanwhile,
former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, quietly ducked into
a dark corner after riotously
leading the nPDP out of the
August national convention of
the party. Immediately the news of the
defections hit the airwaves,
the reactions were predictably
mixed. PDP members and their
sympathisers were relieved to
see them go. Perhaps, the party will now sit down and prepare
for 2015 without looking over
their shoulders whether Alhaji
Abubakar Baraje or Governor
Rotimi Amaechi and their
agents would be snooping around for information with
which to sabotage the party or
accuse the Jonathan
administration of real or
imagined misdeeds. Now
swallowed in a new party, the newcomers will be forced to
shut up and allow the APC’s
leaders and spokesmen to
tackle the PDP and its Federal
Government. On the other hand, APC
members and sympathisers
rejoiced. It was also
understandable. A venture that
started with rumours of
Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, the leader of the ACN going into a
merger with General
Muhammadu Buhari, founder of
the CPC has now spawned a
true mega party, with the
potentials to rival the ruling PDP in every department of the
game come 2015. It is a
success story unlike any other
in the annals of merger efforts
aimed at curbing the nation’s
drift towards one-party state. But then, I daresay that the
real work has begun for the
APC. First of all, it has to come
up with deft strategies to
accommodate the newcomers
and give them a place of belonging. How they go about
this will be a major test of
their strength as a political
party. For instance, how will
the old APC stalwarts in states
like Kano, Nasarawa and Sokoto fare, with the governors
of those states coming in with
their structures from PDP? How
will Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau
weigh alongside Governor
Rabiu Kwankwaso in Kano, or who will the APC as a party
listen more to in a battle for
supremacy between former
governor Attahiru Bafarawa
and the newcomer Governor
Magatakarda Wamakko in SokotoState? Amaechi has no
such problem in RiversState
because APC was virtually
nonexistent before he
decamped. It is now left to be
seen how he can convert Rivers from a solid PDP base for
President Jonathan to that of
APC, even if he becomes the
unfancied vice presidential
candidate of a Northern
flagbearer as being speculated. The APC also has to brace up
for the fierce battle for the
presidential and other tickets
come next year. It remains to
be seen how Kwankwaso’s
presidential ambition will fly in his new party, since he was
committed to it enough to
decamp from the PDP. We wait
to see whether Tinubu will still
be able to manipulate the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Waziri
Tambuwal, as his favoured
presidential candidate,
especially now that the North
has upstaged the South West. Yes, and that is another thorny
issue that the APC is
condemned to tackle in the
days ahead. Things have
changed in the APC. The South
Western media have been branding Tinubu as the
“National Leader” of the APC.
When Tinubu controlled six
states (Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo,
Ekiti and Edo) and the North
had only four (Borno, Yobe, Nasarawa and Zamfara), he
was able to win the concession
of the interim National
Chairman and other prime
spots for his group. Now, with
the coming of Kano, Kwara and SokotoStates into the APC, the
comparative advantage has
gone into Northern hands since
they now have seven states. Northerners in APC are likely to
rally around one leader since
they desperately want to
recapture power in 2015.
Tinubu will have to learn from
now on how to play the second fiddle. If Buhari succeeds in clinching
the presidential ticket of the
now seriously enlarged APC, his
chances of winning the
election in 2015 will
significantly improve from his woeful running in the past,
though it be an uphill task to
topple President Jonathan at
the polls.
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