Ardent followers of the political events in the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) in the country would express consternation on how things are beginning to fall apart with centre no longer holding in the party that was consummated less than three years ago.

Like every discerning mind, I quite appreciate the fact that the APC was formed by conglomeration strange bed fellows. It is also not an understatement to state that the coming together of politicians of diverse ethnic backgrounds, conflicting political ideologies and interests would spark up rancours and I think the present political scenario playing out must have been presumed but with no strong internal democracy to tame the expected monster.

But one fact must be established here, the crisis is not expected so soon. One would have expected the gladiators to tarry a while and keep their gun powders dry till 2019 when the scramble to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari would have gathered momentum.

One may wonder why were people attaching so much interest and emotion to the imbroglio between the National leader of the party, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu and the party’s national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, because the opposition, which superintended over the country for 16 unbroken years, is also mired in intractable crisis.

The only difference has been that the PDP enjoyed a relative cohesion during the first five years of its establishment, with President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar having the best of relationship before the 2003 succession battle created a centrifugal force that later shook the party to its foundation.

Several diverse opinions had been reeled out over the attack launched by Tinubu against Oyegun on the conduct of the APC governorship primary in Ondo. Some were of the opinions that Tinubu would have taken things easy and allow the party to use its internal mechanism to rectify the perceived malfeasance in the emergence of Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu in the highly pulsating and controversial primary. In contrast, some said Tinubu was right, because he wouldn’t have folded his arms and allow a clique to be running the party he laboured to build like a lawless fiefdom.

I found one thing so traumatizing here, that is the fact that the matter is gradually assuming an ethnic colouration. Various political pundits ascribed the supremacy battle to a clandestine moves by some Fulani oligarchs to allegedly asphyxiate the Yoruba political future within the party. Without this coming to the fore, one needs no rocket scientist to explain that there is obvious and dangerous political chess-game and intricacies within the party geared towards neutralizing Tinubu, who is indisputably the leader of Yoruba in APC.

An Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, a strong believer and proponent of this theory cited several historical political trajectories in the country to corroborate the fact that Fulanis can’t play subservient to anybody. But did Tinubu want any subservient in APC? Considering his progressive political background anchored on justice, equity and fairplay, what Tinubu wanted going by the contents of the letter written to Oyegun was for justice to be done in Ondo governorship conundrum and nothing more.

I have seen many Tinubu’s traducers coming up with unsubstantiated allegations that what the national leader wanted was for his anointed candidate, Dr. Segun Abraham to be imposed. As naivety and hollow as this allegation was, it worth being addressed.

Let me start by emphasizing that Oyegun and his NWC have not denied the fact that the delegate list used for the conduct of the contentious poll was padded with 150 fictitious names. Silence in law means consent. Even the beneficiary of the alleged fraud, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, who incidentally, is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria(SAN), has not overtly debunked the allegation. All they were busy defending was the fact that nobody could practically decipher whom the padded delegates actually voted for out of the 24 aspirants.
As apposite and intelligent as the foregoing sounded, one fact has been established and that was admittance of fraud. If the APC leaders still value integrity and wholeheartedly embraced President Muhammadu Buhari’s quests to cleanse the country of corruption in any form through his change agenda, Nigerians expected that the primary should have been set aside in line with the Helen Bendega-led appeal panel’s recommendations.

My own fear here is that, for how long would Nigerians been in abeyance expecting their Messiah? When President Buhari plunged into the presidential race after three futile attempts, they expected that the man that would redirect the country to the path of sanity had arrived. Nigerian citizens didn’t act gullibly, they acted based on Buhari’s track records. In actual fact, the president has‎ demonstrated his sincerity and candour in this direction, but the current Ondo debacle has tremendously tainted the anti-corruption war, except the APC –led federal government is beclouded by sentiment.

However, I have not changed my mind that something good can still come out of Jerusalem. Sanity can still be instilled and prevail in APC. I shared the view of the greatest sufferer of the shenanigans, Dr Abraham that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) must probe the alleged poll robbery to add glamour to the anti-graft war.

President Buhari must remember that the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu are being probed over alleged doctoring of the senate’s standing rule that brought them into office. Nigerians are expecting that there should be no sacred cow to protect the institutions of government.

Coming to the main issue, did Tinubu’s adversaries in APC realized the enormity of what they were out to achieve? Are they abreast of the fact that Tinubu belongs to Yoruba nation and whatever affects him would be interpreted as a persecution of the ethnic group? Aside from the impending doom that awaits APC in the Southwest, the present imbroglio had polarised the party into three with each striving hard to establish its dominance over and above the other.

Back to the allegation of imposition against Tinubu while calling the shot in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). It was alleged that Akeredolu’s emergence shouldn’t have rattled the national leader on account of his alleged domineering tendency as ACN leader and founder. They cited how he unilaterally imposed Dr Kayode Fayemi and Mr. Babatunde Fashola in Ekiti and Lagos prior to 2007 governorship polls against the will of the party. They also alluded to the alleged imposition of Akeredolu in the last Ondo poll to justify their warped and wild allegation.

One thing would have to be registered here, Tinubu is a politically savvy and ingenious person with his experiences drawn from his stint at the Senate and eight years as the governor of the most sophisticated State in Nigeria, Lagos. These callous politicians shouldn’t have expected him to act foolishly by conducting primaries in ACN, a regional party that was grossly susceptible to incursion of the highly dominant PDP. To avoid this, he always opted for consensus and it paid off with the party controlling six states from the initial one.

The fact I want to raise here is not to apportion blame or chastise those opposed to the APC national leader, but to tell them to watch their back and tread softly as notable Yoruba persons and opinion moulders across party lines are viewing the raging war as an attempt to subjugate Yoruba’s voice in the ruling party. With the way Adebanjo, former Governor of Old Ondo State, Evang. Bamidele Olumilua, former Minister of Aviation, Mr Femi Fani-Kayode and others had spoken in defence of Tinubu, I think that was instructive for them to allow civility and commonsense to prevail in this matter.

The insinuation that the external forces had found allies among Tinubu’s political scions is not new to Yoruba race. They did same to the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the first republic.

Those found to have got involved in that perfidy were identified by the Yorubas and that led to the eclipse of their political careers in the region.

Those fanning the ember of disunity and ethnic cleansing in the APC must beware to avoid the calamity that befell the PDP in 2015 to repeat itself in the ruling party.
BEH is Broooooooom!!!
Written by Ahmed Salami