From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Three weeks to the commencement of campaigns, the internal crisis in the All Progressives Congress (APC) may have deepened as indications emerged at the weekend that former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and other presidential aspirants have vowed to opt out of planned reconciliation meetings.
The party, last week, disclosed that it had set machinery in motion to pacify aggrieved presidential aspirants by formally bringing them to a dialogue table as from next week.
The National Working Committee (NWC) fixed September 12 to re-launch the fresh reconciliation move, revealing that it has been engaging the aggrieved aspirants secretly, as the build-up.
“It is not that difficult to reconcile them. Part of the plans set out by the NWC is to scale up engagement with aggrieved aspirants, both the presidential, governorship, and national and state assemblies. The meeting with the presidential aspirants will take place in Abuja while the governorship and parliamentary aspirants will take place at zonal levels.
“It is also not true that the party neglected the reconciliation move for too long. You should understand that healing takes a gradual process. Many things have been going on underground and behind the scene to pacify the aggrieved. The leadership is working very hard and have been engaging in consultations; that is why the secretariat is almost empty most times.
“I have no doubt that it will achieve result. We are not in the public space to be announcing it. We have been consulting at zonal and national levels for reconciliation. Something is being done internally but we don’t want to be like the PDP,” the source said at the weekend.
However, mMultiple sources close to the former Minister and some of the aspirants dismissed the possibility of Amaechi and many of his colleagues appearing during the meeting, stressing that no chieftain of the party had even made any attempt to pacify them.
One of the sources who is a highly placed member of the APC told Daily Sun that Amaechi particularly was angry over the continued unholy alliance between some leaders of the ruling party with Governor Nyesom Wike.
“Amaechi sees the development as a spite on his personality as leader of the party in Rivers State. How do you want him to freely be part of such peace parley when some leaders of the party have continued to hold meetings with Wike both in Nigeria and in Europe? Did it show any iota of respect for a man who sacrificed so much to build the APC?
“They have even made some outlandish promises to Wike. So, why do they still want Amaechi to be part of such a reconciliation meeting? Anyway, he has not yet been approached as we speake to you to know whether he wants to participate in such a meeting but I can tell you that the leadership of the party went too far to spit on him.”
But reacting, a member of the national leadership of the ruling party, said as far as the party was concerned, APC needs Wike more than Amaechi.
He said that though Wike would not join the APC, he will, however, work for the presidential candidate of the party.
“We are aware that Amaechi is apparently not happy with the party. We also know that he has complained about the leadership of the party and even our presidential candidate and his supporters preferring to pitch tents with Wike in such a brazen manner to spite him.
“But Amaechi ought to know by now that what is happening is the intricate game of politics. He should not forget that such happened when he left the PDP to join the APC and they gave him the structure of the APC in Rivers State. It was the same thing that happened to former Senate President in Kwara, to Kwankwaso in Kano and Benue State too.
“So, why would he be happy to exercise such powers and privilege when it was given to him as incumbent governor then and unhappy now that APC is trying to lure Wike? The only difference is that Wike is not going to defect to the APC but he has agreed to work for the ruling party.
“Incidentally, the situation Amaechi now found himself in is exactly the same thing facing almost all the presidential aspirants from the South East among others, including Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo. They cannot be fully integrated into the party nor will they join the opposition party. The options left for them include either to retire from politics or work for the party and hope for the best, after all, they have held substantive positions in the past.”