By Iheanacho Nwosu,Abuja
Finally, the bubble has burst. Water has boiled over at the All Progressives Congress (APC). The letter by the National Leader of the party Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu asking the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun to quit office over the role he allegedly played in the outcome of the recent Ondo governorship primaries has brought home the reality that the governing party is at war with itself.
The unfolding drama is, if truth must be told, not confounding to those who have been following events in the party. The signs have been there. But leaders of the party have adroitly and deftly subdued them.
Tinubu’s letter has rattled the leadership of the party. “We are rattled by the letter. I must tell you that we were not expecting it”, one of the National Working Committee(NWC) members who does not want his name mentioned confessed.
He added: “all of us knew that he was not happy with the way the Ondo matter was resolved in favour of Akeredolu but we thought we would resolve our differences in a family manner”.
The outcome of the Ondo primaries had held the party down for days. Former President of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Rotimi Akeredolu was declared winner of the exercise. But the decision rankled the party. Olusegun Abraham who was alleged to have been anointed by Tinubu to fly the ticket of the party, teamed up with other aspirants to protest Akeredolu’s emergence. They accused him of not winning cleanly. A three man committee was set up to investigate the allegation. Two voted for a repeat of the primary while one asked the party to stick to Akeredolu. Oyegun-led NWC acceded the advice of the minority voice and forwarded the former NBA’s name to INEC last week.
But that decision has turned out to be Oyegun’s unforgivable transgression.
For the former Lagos State governor, there is no other better explanation to the decision of the APC leadership on the matter except that it is a sabotage of the party and the nation’s democracy.
His letter read in part: “The APC, a party born of the quest for democratic good governance, is under critical threat by those who managed to be in the party but never of it. From the party’s inception, the principles of democratic fairness and justice were to guide APC internal deliberations.
“Party founders realized that only by intramural fair dealing could the party remain faithful to the progressive ideals that we presented to the Nigerian electorate as our governing creed. If the party could not justly govern itself, it would find it difficult to establish and maintain just government throughout the nation.
“In essence, the party was the embodiment of a democratic promise made between its members as well as a democratic vow made to the public. Evidently, some errant members believe promises and vows are mere words to be easily spoken and more easily broken.
“Chairman John Oyegun has breached these good pledges in a most overt and brazen display. In doing so, Oyegun has dealt a heavy blow to the very party he professes to lead. It is an awful parent who suffocates his own child for the sake of a few Naira. The party was supposed to buttress APC members elected to government at all levels. Because of Oyegun’s conduct of our affairs, the party is rapidly becoming an albatross to those it was meant to help. “Oyegun’s comportment regarding the Ondo State primary will become the textbook definition of political treachery and malfeasance of the basest order”.
The letter continued “There exists a regressive element in the party that cares nothing for the progressive ideas upon which this party was founded. They joined the APC because it was the best ride available at the time. Now they want to guide the party into the ditch. They want to turn the party into a soulless entity incapable of doing good, just like they are. “When such a person tastes power, they shed all good restraint. They come to abuse the trust given them as if they are the owners of that trust and not its mere custodians. These people did little to build the party but now will do much to wreck it. “As party chairman, Oyegun was supposed to protect our internal processes and be an impartial arbiter, a person in whom all had confidence. Instead, he donned the garment of a confident man, duping the NWC, the party, and INEC in one fell blow. He has robbed APC members in Ondo State of the chance to pick in a fair manner who they believe is the best candidate. “As such, he has broken faith with the party and probably has broken a few laws. The consequences of what he has done are more expansive than a man of his scope can fathom,”
At first, Oyegun did not respond to the salvo. He decided to keep mum despite the huge mud splashed on him by the former governor.
His silence, possibly, may have been informed by two reasons. First, the absence of President Mohammed Buhari who is unarguably the leader of the party and who Oyegun may want to get his advice on the next step to take on the matter. Secondly, it is not impossible that he decided to take the path of taciturnity on the issue to avoid further degeneration of the bad situation.
But if he is keeping sealed lips on the development, stalwarts of rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are not keeping quiet on the issue. Elder statesman and chieftain of PDP, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai said the development is a credence to earlier prediction that the APC would soon implode.
Hear him: “Yes, political analysts believe that soon after the formation of the present government, it is only a matter of time before crises in the APC explodes. “APC is an amalgamation of four to five political groups. After the formation of the government, only CPC group is considered for political patronage. ACN and PDP groups are sidelined. ANPP group is neither here nor there in spite of the appointment of the party’s former national chairman, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu into the cabinet. ACN leader, Ashiwaju Tinubu is totally out of the picture despite the fact that the vice President is his nominee. The appointment of Fashola to the jumbo ministry is considered personal, just like that of Amaechi. Bukola’s emergence as Senate president is largely due to his personal financial prowess and the block support he received from the PDP members in the Senate.
“Prior to the financial crises the country is plunged into, the vice President was a mere onlooker. His new found relevance is made possible by his position as the chairman of the National Economic Council, which conferred on him the position of the chairman of the Economic Team of the government.
“So, at present ACN, PDP and ANPP groups are mere onlookers. Senate president, Bukola Saraki asserted at one time that APC government is hijacked by a cabal who are now in control of day-to-day affairs of running the government. People are inclined to believe what the Senate president has said. The situation at the moment is that apart from the CPC members, everybody in the government is a mere onlooker. Those shut out of the power equation in the government including Tinubu are a bunch of disgruntled elements. “
Former spokesman of the PDP presidential campaign Organisation , Femi Fani-Kayode also threw his missiles in the direction of APC. In an article, he argued “In July 2016, just after my release from detention and during the course of an interview with Channels Television (which can still be viewed on Youtube) Mr. Seun Okinbaloye asked me whether I could ever contemplate going back to the APC and how I thought the ruling party would fare into the future.
“I told him that I would NEVER go back to the APC under ANY circumstances. I also told him that in any case by 2019, there would not be an APC, as it is presently constituted, because the party would have split up into three separate and distinct political entities.
“I told him that the Tinubu group comprising of men like Baba Bisi Akande, Rauf Aregbesola, Akinwummi Ambode and others would establish one party, the Atiku Abubakar group comprising of men like Bukola Saraki, Rabiu Kwakwanso and many of the former PDP leaders and governors that had left for the APC when President Goodluck Jonathan was in power would establish another and that the Buhari group comprising of men like Nasir El Rufai, Bello Masari, Aminu Tambuwal, Rotimi Amaechi, Rochas Okorocha, Chris Ngige, Ogbonaya Onu, Adams Oshiomole and virtually the entire structure of the old CPC leadership in the core north would constitute yet another. I stand by this prediction.
“These three strong and equally forceful factions can be likened to the proverbial three blind yet ravenous wolves. They cannot stay in the same cage or remain on the same platform for long without tearing each other to pieces. Eventually they will all go their separate ways and, hopefully, contend with a newly-branded and reinvigorated PDP in the field of battle in 2019. What we are witnessing today in the ranks of the APC is the beginning of that bitter separation and messy divorce and it is going to get far worse.
“It will be loud, bitter, acrimonious and rancorous and many political empires, careers and aspirations will be destroyed as a consequence of it.
“My hope and prayer is that the PDP, which is also going through its own rigorous process of redefinition and reinvigoration, can get its act together before then, take advantage of the situation, pick up the pieces and win the presidential election in 2019. I am sure that we will.
“Meanwhile my advice to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is to watch his back, consolidate his base, fight his enemies, reach out to new friends, accept the fact that he is at war and sleep with one eye wide open. The truth is that it will get far worse before it gets any better.”
“The truth is that the behaviour of Chief John Odige-Oyegun towards the man that single-handedly made him the National Chairman of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is reprehensible.
And neither does this matter begin or end with the way and manner in which the Ondo State governorship primaries were conducted or its final outcome.”
Clearly speaking , the dispute over Ondo governorship primaries is not the first thing that crossed the paths of Tinubu and Oyegun. Both are still nursing the old wounds that came from the emergence of the current National Assembly leadership. The former governor’s candidates for Senate presidency and Speaker in the Senate and House of Representatives suffered a rout. This was to the chagrin of Tinubu. He believed Oyegun would have done better in ensuring that APC’s preferred and anointed candidates emerged. That was where the frosty relationship between the two started. The APC boss made strings of efforts to explain his own side of the story but his narratives fell on deaf ears. Tinubu and his men were not swayed.
The impact of the no-love-lost between the duo is clear and open for many to see. “That our party is starved of funds to the point that we struggle to buy diesel to power our generator or get enough money to pick our bills is because Asiwaju has turned his back on us. The secretariat is barely surviving”, the NWC member disclosed.
The current crisis is likely to wear a new complexion in the next few days. One of the reasons for that is because the President’s men who have been protecting Oyegun since he fell out with Tinubu are likely to weigh in. President Buhari himself may, in the open, intervene and call the National chairman and the National leader to order. But the move is unlikely to achieve much. The two power blocs, that is, the President’s men and Tinubu’s camp have dug deep political burrow. They are pursuing divergent goals and agenda and may be difficult to accept rhetorics from any quarter that would ask them to apply breaks. This foggy situation is likely to continue for a long time and may even metamorphose into a more damming development. That is when the fight for who controls the party’s machinery ahead of the 2019 polls takes center stage. For now, the drama has just begun.