From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Apart from the fanfare of successfully poaching two governors, deputy governors, legislators and political heavyweights from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other opposition political parties, winning some staggered bye-elections, conducting nationwide congresses, completing membership registration and revalidation, which purportedly scaled up the membership strength to 40 million, the All Progressives Congress (APC) would have ended the year, 2021 in an unimpressive note.

There were apparently several defining moments in 2021 that made the ruling party to end the year in a mixed bag of the good, the bad, the ugly. Except for few events, the outgoing year was undoubtedly one characterised by yet another endless crises, mostly from the outcome of the rancorous congresses conducted across the country.

For the ruling party, it is a year the governors under the umbrella of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) consolidated their control of the structure of the party and dictated the direction it is headed. It is a year of mudslinging, intimidations and suppression of the voices of disgruntled party members; all manner of sanctions were used to regulate and reduce litigations against the party.

Many political watchers would argue that in 2021, the APC disappointed the citizens with its inability to provide manifest solutions to rescue the economy from sliding into doldrums; the party could not stop or even reduce the myriad of insecurity challenges including insurgency, kidnapping and banditry.

Year of litigations

To     APC, 2021 is a year of litigations and one the Supreme Court judgment almost crippled the activities of the ruling party. The bone of contention was the validity or otherwise of Mai Mala Buni occupying both the position of Governor of Yobe State and the position of the chairman of the APC Caretaker Committee.

Legal minds like Festus Keyamo, Kayode Ajulo and a host of others raised issues to test the implications of the Supreme Court rulings especially on the legality of the Caretaker Committee conducting nationwide congresses, organising party primaries for out-of-season governorship elections and other party activities.

Keyamo and his co-travellers had while enumerating measures to be adopted to redirect the party’s sinking ship, specifically urged the national leadership to hurt the then proposed party congresses to avoid an impending doom, warning that continuing with the exercise in the face of the Supreme Court ruling will tantamount to weaponising aggrieved members to destroy the party.

The challenging incidents for the APC this year did not end there, as the party unfortunately got the rude shock of their life in the November 6 Anambra State governorship election, finishing a distant third and ending up factionalised to the extent that aggrieved members worked against the interests of party.

But if the litigations and other occurrences rattled the party’s national leadership, members and other concerned Nigerians, they are however a child’s play to the quit notice that came recently from the APC Progressive Youth Movement (PYM) to the Governor Buni-led Caretaker Committee with the threat to, not only vacate the national secretariat for them, but also to unleash an audit firm to thoroughly scrutinise the account of the party since the present leadership assumed power.

The threat actually rattled the party especially the national leadership to the point of sponsoring several other youth groups to counter, disown and weaken the audacious Mustapha Audu-led PYM, including dragging them to various security agents and disowning their membership of the party.

Beautiful Bride

Surprisingly, the APC turned out a beautiful bride in 2021. Despite its challenges, it is on record that the leadership of the ruling party successfully poached two PDP governors – Prof Ben Ayade of Cross River and his Zamfara State counterpart, Bello Mohammad Matawalle. Anambra deputy governor, countless number of serving and former lawmakers and chieftains of other parties also defected to the the APC.

Commendably also, in its determination to manage the escalating crises rocking the party across the country, the leadership had, apart from extending olive branches to the multiplicity of aggrieved members, equally constituted the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led high-powered national reconciliation committee to ensure the party becomes a peaceful united family.

Again, other landmark achievements and visible giant strides the Caretaker Committee recorded in the past one year are in the areas of conflict management both at state and national levels, continued redirection of the party’s sinking ship, restoration of the confidence of members and secretariat staff. The party more importantly also created a tripartite committee headed by the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo and managed some  crises better when compared to the days of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC).

To a large extent, until the outcome of the rancorous congresses deepened the fragile peace in some states, the Caretaker Committee performed creditably well in reconciling gladiators especially at the states and zones hitherto enmeshed in one controversy or the other. And in fairness to the party, it would be safe to say that like the Bible chronicles the wonders Jesus Christ performed, the blind could see that the party recorded more successes than setbacks this year.

In a nutshell, some of the factors that shaped the APC in year 2021 include the controversy over the extension of the Caretaker Committee’s life, the interpretation of the Supreme Court judgment on Governor Buni’s position, the rancorous congresses across the country, the rattling quit notice to CECPC from a youth group, the intrigue surrounding the February scheduled National Convention date and the traumatic loss of Anambra governorship election.

Buni’s tenure extension controversy

One area that recurred severally is the uncertainty over the tenure of the Caretaker Committee. Though the intensity of the suspicion was mild compared with the Adams Oshiomhole’s administration, one of the areas the Governor Buni-led Caretaker Committee fanned the embers of distrust was creating room for suspicion that it is tactically planning to serve out the tenure of the sacked NWC.

The suspicion led to the litigations and mild protests allegedly sponsored by certain hidden APC chieftains to challenge the legality of its continued occupation of the position.

Snowballing from litigations to attacks, a group, Concerned APC Stakeholders and the party’s Zamfara chieftain, Senator Kabiru Marafa among others, had brutally attacked the national leadership of the party; threatening a showdown should it continue in the office. Protesting what they termed the Caretaker Committee’s monumental failure, the aggrieved members had demanded an urgent composition of another Committee to organise the party’s National Convention and usher in a brand new NWC.

Chronicling the sins of the leadership, the APC Stakeholders specifically noted that; “the Caretaker Committee which was constituted primarily to stabilize the party, organize congresses and convention went about functioning as if it was the NWC, carrying out responsibilities it has no mandate for.”

But pouring cold water on the threat as it concerns suspicion for tenure elongation, a member of the Caretaker Committee had said that: “If we have the need to extend the life of this Caretaker Committee, we will consult major stakeholders. Don’t forget that the power of NEC is now with us. You should know that the Caretaker Committee is a legal body and its legality has been tested and confirmed with at least two court judgements.”

However, such powers were tested and rubbished when President Muhammadu Buhari warned that he was expecting the report of the committee ahead of the expiration of its tenure this year.

Supreme Court ruling and matters arising

The Supreme Court ruling on the electoral victory of Rotimi Akeredolu as the governor of Ondo State, which by extension questioned the legality of the chairman of the Caretaker Committee in its minority rulings, could be said to be an albatross on the neck of the APC’s national leadership.

The debate and heightened tension that followed the Supreme Court judgment made the party one of the most troubled and discussed political topics across the country and beyond this year. Perhaps, the ruling party would have continued with business as usual until the Supreme Court ruling, but the ‘letter bomb’ from the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo (SAN), urging the party to discontinue all activities to the congress until the resolution of the legality of Governor Buni’s position in the party escalated the situation.

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Shortly after that Supreme Court judgment concerning the Yobe State governor doubling as the party’s chairman, an unsolicited advice had come from Keyamo, legal activist, Ajulo, presidential aide, Babafemi Ojudu, APC PYM, and the opposition party, PDP, warning against continuing with the scheduled congress with Buni still in charge.

“The Supreme Court has just weaponised all those that would be aggrieved by the APC Congresses to proceed to court to challenge the competence of the Buni-led CECPC to organise the Congresses and National Convention. The judiciary will subsequently destroy the entire structure of the party from bottom to top.

“We are lucky the Supreme Court has just given us a great and useful hint to save our party just before the beginning of our Congresses. We cannot gamble with this delicate issue. The time to act is NOW,” Keyamo had warned, setting the tone for what became an intense legal debate.

Congresses of controversies

After throwing in every legal and diplomatic weapon to circumvent the legal threat posed by the Supreme Court judgment, the ruling party’s efforts to successfully conduct credible and acceptable party congresses rather enmeshed the party in deeper controversies and crisis.

In almost all the six geo-political zones, the congresses were replete with crisis, threats, boycott, litigation, use of brute force, intimidation, death, hijack of electoral materials and lamentably the emergence of parallel congresses. While the situation was mild and relatively peaceful in some states, there was heightened tension in others like Rivers, Kwara, Enugu, Ekiti, Osun, Ogun, Abia, Imo, Benue, Kano and many more.

In fact, the congresses were more of survival of the fittest. It was so crisis-ridden that the party had to read a riot act to aggrieved members on its readiness to descend hard with sanctions on anybody.

It was miffed by the controversy it generated and the sarcastic comments from the opposition PDP taunting the ruling party.

The Anambra governorship poll was an election the APC deployed everything to not only win but trounce the ruling party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), but it lost the election disgracefully.

From the leader of the party in the state, Dr Chris Ngige, Director General Voice of Nigeria (VON) to Concerned APC Stakeholders, there was an uncanny unanimity that the national leadership bungled the victory with the deceitful June 26 party primary.

According to Ngige; “We are going into the 2023 general elections after coming out from one at which brothers fought brothers and which many people were disenfranchised, humiliated as aspirants after paying close to N30 million each for 13 of them to secure forms.

“In anger, they refused to identify with the party because of the flag bearer in quotes. We had a very ugly experience on June 26 during our party primary; we all came out but the primary never held. I will continue to say that no APC primary election was held in Anambra and anybody who wants to report me to God can do so.

“People and party members were injured including me who left Abuja to come and cast a vote but could not. The aspirants were also hurt because they could not vote or be voted for after spending huge sums of money. Ward and Local Government chairmen were also affected.

“They stayed under the sun from morning till evening but could not vote for aspirants of their choice. Our problem started from that day and snowballed into the main election. Of course, the house divided among itself can never win a war.

“We pleaded with them to come and apologise to these people so that we can make peace, but they refused and claimed that the election has been won already. They even sarcastically told anybody who is not happy should jump into the lagoon because the election has been won. They will even show you election results if you care to see them,” he lamented.

Confirming the plan to rig the election, he said: “My politics is not in that direction and I said no. I took permission from Mr President, my boss, to excuse me from this journey and campaign because I don’t want to be part of this electoral malfeasance because I am already going into the hall as a boarding pass. I said that I won’t involve myself in what God will ask me questions.”

The rattling quit notice

One incident the national leadership of the ruling party will not forget in a hurry this year is the quit notice issued to it by a furious APC youth group, giving January 3, 2022 ultimatum, to occupy party headquarters and threat to audit the account of the CECPC.

The quit notice was the climax of the crises and cold war rocking the party, which propelled it to deploy every machinery to crush the rebellious youths.

Announcing the sack of the Buni-led Caretaker Committee, the group noted: “This is the new APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee. It is clear that there are issues in our great party and we all know that there are constitutional lacunae we are facing and the opposition is not happy with what is going on.

“The composition of the sacked Caretaker Committee was in clear violation of the party and Nigeria constitution but we have resolved that constitution lacuna and are no longer unprepared for the 2023 general elections. There are enough problems existing already and the majority of it came from the governors. In order to fix the problems as youths, we have to stand up bravely and boldly to face the challenges.

“Today is the day that the story of youths being leaders of tomorrow ends. We have been recognised by Mr President and by all the members of the party. I can tell you that the leaders are currently scrambling and having meetings on how to align with us.

“This Caretaker Committee has sacked the Buni-led Caretaker Committee and stands devolved, disbanded and no longer represents the APC members. As the new committee, we will take up the monumental task of reconciliation,” the group’s leader, Mustapha Audu, had announced.

Distraught with the pronouncement, the party leadership had explored every avenue to crush them including threat of sanction, disownment and allegedly sponsoring rival youth groups to subjugate and whittle down their disturbing rising influence.

The proposed February National Convention

Perhaps, one of the measures deployed to calm the agitated nerves in the year 2021 was the move by the progressive governors to convince President Buhari to confirm February next year as a temporary date for the conduct of the much-awaited party’s National Convention.

For the fact that no date has been fixed in addition to the failure to put other measures in place to conduct outstanding congresses, set up zoning committee and or resolve pending crises in many states, there are still some doubts over the sincerity of the Caretaker Committee to conduct the convention.

Unless urgent measures are put in place to resolve some of these teething challenges ahead of a year preceding a general election, the ruling party may get the shock of its existence in the 2023 general elections.