From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Since the emergence of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as the National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), there are fears of the possibility of Nigeria transmuting into a one party state.
For many critical observers, several evidences abound to corroborate the fears in many ways. They include the countless number of the opposition parties jumping into the APC in droves since the conclusion of the general election and the shocking verdicts from the various tribunals in favour of the APC in the state, National Assemblies, governorship, and presidential elections.
Apart from the above evidence, the unseen hands of the APC in the crippling crises rocking almost all the opposition parties, ranging from New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Labour Party (LP) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) among others equally allude to the fact that the fears may be real.
Already, things seem to be working according to the plot. Typical of Nigerian politicians, usually good in subjugating and sacrificing party ideology on the altar of crude desperation to manipulate and win election, the target of the APC chieftains and leaders in plotting a one-party state is ultimately targeted at the 2027 presidential election.
To match words with action, Ganduje was unapologetic when he disclosed the plot of ensuring that other political parties collapsed into APC the day former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, paid him a courtesy visit, flaming the speculations of the prospect of his joining the ruling party.
The immediate past governor of Kano State had ecstatically revealed that there were underground, calculated plans hatched to ensure that several opposition parties collapse their structures into the ruling party very soon.
He said: “Wike joining the APC will certainly improve the chances of our party, especially in 2027. Not only that, we are coming out with a new blueprint to increase the followership of the party which will include all strata of officials; those in APC and those in other political parties. I assure you, very soon some of the political parties will even merge with the APC. We are doing that underground.”
As if the admittance of the plot was not enough handwriting on the wall to confirm the plot, the ruling party went ahead to appoint Wike, a staunch chieftain of the PDP into the federal cabinet as a minister, in what suggests, indicates, and confirms that the APC is on a harmless mission to make Nigeria a one-party state.
In testing the depth of the river with even two legs, Wike, the serving Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), was again drafted into the list of APC National Campaign Council for the November 11 Bayelsa State governorship election.
The leadership of the ruling party was not even deterred by the volcanic eruption of criticisms that trailed Wike’s inclusion in the Bayelsa campaign council as the party’s boss, last week, urged the visiting APC Rivers State delegation, to open their arms widely to receive members of other political parties willing to join the APC.
The delegation, led by the APC state’s 2023 governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, had among other requests and prayers, complained about the snubbing of the party members in the federal appointments.
“If the events we described shocked us a little, what happened next which was card-carrying PDP members of Rivers State getting appointments in our APC Federal Government left us completely confused and very upset. Those rewarded are PDP members who spent huge state resources trying to destroy APC in Rivers State since 2013 and failed, primarily because these loyal APC members here resisted them fiercely.
“Your Excellency would be shocked that as we address you in this meeting, Rivers State chapter of the APC has no representation at any level of governance in our country. There isn’t a single Rivers APC member appointed at any level of the federal, state, or Local Government. Things are much worse now than they were in 2015,” the party members complained.
But as members of the delegation were yet to overcome the shock of the party and President Bola Tinubu snubbing them in the appointments, the response from the party’s boss may have worsened their situations.
In his reply to their appeals, Ganduje clearly told them that; “APC as we know it in Rivers state, very many of you left the party to form another party to contest elections. But I think with your determination to rebuild the party, we urge you to create an even environment to keep your doors open so that those that left the party no matter how big they are in another party where they went for sabbatical leave, will come back to their original base and to their original employers.
“You know you can go on sabbatical leave and after a year, you come back. Create an even environment so that they can come back to the party. Also, some people who have not been in the party before, we will also like them to join the party. You will keep your doors open as we are because what we need is to rebuild our party so that we become solid and it must be so.
“The original members in APC Rivers State, as we told you, will always remain the backbone of the party. But you need to keep your house in order and solid. You need to open your house for others to come so that we build the state because it is better to be a servant in paradise than to be a king in hell,” he quipped.
Still reacting further, Ganduje declared: “I believe we have taken the right way to rebuild APC in Rivers State, the party that we know the history, the party that we know before the formation of government. We lost the government, it pained us. And we saw how we were intimidated in Rivers State, despite being in government at the centre then, even by the security agents.
“So, we know the politics. We know the power of the Federal Government and how you were intimidated at that time because you chose to be good to the APC. There is no doubt Rivers State is a very important state. It is a swing state for election in Nigeria. It is an oil-rich state which is important not only to the state but also to the nation. The population is there and it is important during elections,” Ganduje said to declare the state a must-take for the APC.
Curiously, APC, from all indications, certainly turns out to be the biggest beneficiary of the crisis rocking almost all the opposition parties. The crisis in the other parties seems to be orchestrated by the APC with the ultimate target to either poach its leaders after weakening the parties or to make the 2027 presidential and other elections’ contest a single race.
And apparently, the crisis so far may have resulted in the parties regrettably playing into the hands of the ruling party merchants desperate to ensure that they collapse their structures into the APC.
For example, the leadership crisis in the NNPP was hitherto, more or less, a storm in a teacup until the leaders of the APC allegedly deployed machinery to escalate it, which resulted in the reprehensible indefinite expulsion of its presidential candidate, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.
Ever since his expulsion, Ganduje and the APC have remained relentless in not only brutally attacking Kwankwaso, his Kwankwasiyya movement, poaching members/chieftains of the NNPP but also in ensuring the complete dismantling of the structures of the party which culminated in the tribunal verdict that pulled the rug under the feet of the incumbent governor of Kano State, Abba Kabir Yusuf in favour of the APC candidate, Nadir Gawuna.
The first swipe on Kwankwaso, since he became the party’s chairman, came when opposition parties’ presidential candidates, paid him a courtesy visit at the secretariat of the ruling party in Abuja recently.
Though he did not mention Kwankwaso’s name, he however clearly implied the person he was referring to in his address. “I thank you for being faithful to your respective parties. What I am seeing is one political aspirant, who became a presidential candidate by accident and by hijacking another party because he was partyless.
“He decided to hijack a political party. And since he could not realise his aspirations, he decided to make that party a revenue platform rather than a political party. He has now decided to even expel the founder. God forbid, he will not succeed.
“I salute you presidential candidates for being good ambassadors of your own political parties, not destroyers, and for not turning your political parties as a source of revenue. Since you cannot get the presidential tickets, you will get pocket ticket,” he threw more jabs at him.
If he showed some level of civility and dignity in that first attack, he threw caution to the winds in attacking and describing him as serial presidential election loser, last week when the 2023 Bauchi governorship candidate of NNPP, Haliru Dauda Jika, visited to formally announce his intention to return to the APC fold.
“Senator Jika, a household name in Bauchi State, is returning to a party that is very progressive and focused when compared with where he was coming from. He is coming from a party that used to be a decent party and highly respected but was later hijacked and polluted by the Kwankwasiyya group.
“We are happy that the original NNPP has taken back its proper position, leaving the kwankwasiya group deserted and thrown out completely. The Kwankwasiyya group headed by the former Kano State governor was forced to go into a sabbatical leave for eight years before it found its way back to government House.
“The Kwankwasiya head who wears a red cap is the person who prefers to be a king in hell than be a servant in paradise. He specialises in deceiving people. He was first in the PDP, came back to APC when it was formed. That was when the nPDP merged with the legacy parties to form the APC.
“Instead of staying in APC, he decided to leave APC because of his ambition after failing to pick the presidential ticket. He went back to the PDP. He could not stay there again when he failed to pick the ticket. He still went on his own to contest the presidential poll and was defeated twice.
“He is a professional contestant for presidential election and would remain a professional failure. He is egocentric. He loves himself so much. I am happy you have dumped the red cap. It is a very sensible action you have taken,” Ganduje noted in a tone to discredit his former principal.
Beyond flaming the amber of hostility with his estranged godfather, the end product was the orchestrated plot of collapsing the vibrant NNPP and possibly other parties into a puppet of the ruling party.
The plot worked out perfectly. Senator Jika’s comments also confirmed the achievement of the goal. Hear him; “my dumping NNPP for APC has nothing to do with the presidential candidate of NNPP. I have no issue with Kwankwaso. The interest of Bauchi State informed my return to APC.
“Vice President Kashim Shettima and First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, also influenced my decision to return to the APC fold. I pledge to remain loyal to the ruling party and to ensure its victory come 2027 in Bauchi and at the federal levels.” Jika confirmed that the plot is targeted at the build-up to the 2027 general election.
Again, the hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob in the shenanigans by the Bashir Lamide Apapa-led faction of LP in the plot geared towards destabilising the fold of the opposition party in an endless leadership crisis is a well-known case.
Apapa, a largely unknown politician a couple of months ago, had emerged into the limelight of political reckoning as the party’s strongman not for helping ‘his’ party to actualise the mandate widely believed to have been given to LP in the February 25 presidential elections, but for presiding over the demolition plans of the promising party that performed beyond the expectations of bookmakers’ predictions in the last presidential, National and State Assemblies elections that even produced a governor in Abia State.
Just from the blues, the 70-year-old had consistently led a fragment of the membership of the party, to not only lay claim to the headship of the party but also went to court to obtain an order restraining the national chairman, Julius Abure, from parading himself as the party’s national chairman.
Until last week when the verdict of the Supreme Court closed his chapter and his alleged APC-backed antics to finally restore sanity to the party, the last may still not have been heard of him with the remote possibility of the unseen forces still bent on collapsing LP into the APC.
The story of APC’s orchestrated plot to destabilise the main opposition party, the PDP, since losing the presidential election through endless leadership crises in many states has also become a celebrated issue.
Or how else could one describe the drama and endless fierce battle involving the two political parties playing out ahead of the off-season governorship elections, especially in Bayelsa and Imo states?
In Imo State for example, it was that bad that the PDP State leadership did not only collectively abandon the party’s governorship candidate, Samuel Anyanwu but also levied sundry allegations against him and joined the Governor Hope Uzodinma-led APC government in a plan to weaken PDP and make the election a stroll into the park in a single race contest.
Characteristic of the APC, both the leaders and members have continued to boast that there is no party in the state to pose any serious challenge to the ruling party for the governorship election.
In fact, while assessing Uzodimma’s chances for the election, the State’s Commissioner for Trade and Investment, Comrade Simon Ebegbulem, told Daily Sun that the election has already been won and lost, insisting that there is no opposition candidate or party to challenge him.
“I can boldly say that his chances of winning the election on November 11 are very bright. This is because he has done very well. If you compare the state in the past four years before he took over, you will agree that there is a great difference with the Imo State of today.
“This is why I said that our chances are very bright. We don’t actually have any opponent to contest against in the election. Imo is an APC State and will remain so after the forthcoming election. The opposition parties have collapsed completely with many of them scattered and joined the APC.
“When you talk of PDP in Imo, you talk about Emeka Ihedioha but where is he today? I believe he is also with APC in spirit. The executive and majority of the members of the PDP have all joined the APC just because of Uzodimma’s developmental strides,” Ebegbulem noted.
The situation is the same in Bayelsa State. And only last weekend, party members, supporters, and aides to the incumbent governor and candidate of the PDP, Douye Diri, numbering over 5000, abandoned him en masse to join the emerging force in the state, the APC.
The narrative goes without saying that the APC has been the unseen force in almost all the crises bedeviling the opposition parties, in what many pundits described as deadly plans to destabilise the parties and harvest, as the greatest beneficiary, by poaching their members.
In the words of an APC leader who spoke to Daily Sun in confidence; “the plan is clearly working out for my party because we are in a country where most politicians have no ideology. Their idea of politics is purely based on selfish interest.
“Little wonder why most of them have joined almost every available party, which they described as vehicles to take them to their destinations. Imagine the number of reported cases of members of a party crossing from one party to another during major elections.
“When you see members of the opposition party shamelessly visiting APC chairman, just to make requests to be part of the ruling party by lobbying for federal appointments, you will understand that Nigeria is indeed heading towards a one party state.” (SUN)
