At last, the All Progressives Congress (APC) faced its fears and conducted its primary election to pick who flies its flag in next year’s presidential election. The party may have conquered its greatest fears but its biggest headache is in the election of Sen. Abdullahi Adamu as the National Chairman. Right from his election in March, Adamu did not even bother to pretend to hide his aversion to order and proper conduct in the party. He showed his hands early enough when he unilaterally declared that the party had not made any decision on the zoning of its presidential ticket to the southern divide. This was against the popular view, within the party, about a gentleman’s agreement to swing the ticket to the southern divide after the north has had it for two terms. That the agreement was not enshrined in the constitution of the APC does not mean it does not exist. Not every agreement is written. His mindset was obvious even in unilaterally appointing Sen. Ahmed Lawan as the consensus candidate. He plotted a coup that was to put a nail on APC’s aversion to the recognition and respect of the Nigerian diversity as shown in President Muhammadu Buhari’s attitude to the leadership of Nigeria.

Unfortunately, Adamu lost the plot. He lost not because he wanted to lose. No, he lost because the governor of Kaduna state, Nasir el-Rufai, became the enfant terrible in the house. El-Rufai was able to galvanize the support of other APC governors to stage a countercoup against Adamu and in the process, resisted a truncation of the agreement founders of the party had in 2015 to rotate the presidential slot between the north and the south. Prior to this, El-Rufai had spoken openly in condemnation of any plan, by any APC officials or their agents and assigns, to deny the south its turn to hold the presidential ticket of the party. At some point, he became rebellious about it and even traveled the extra mile to ensure that the party respected the agreement by ensuring that Buhari approved the design to bring Adamu in as National chairman.

In leading that countercoup, el-Rufai demonstrated one thing –principle. He showed his principled commitment to respecting an agreement that may not be comfortable and also, not constitutionally binding. Further, the El-Rufai counter demonstrated clearly the power of state governors over the leadership of political parties. In essence, they fund the parties and as such, have a strong voice in what happens therein. Their powers are such that even a presidential plea, by Buhari, to be allowed to anoint, and enthrone a successor, was roundly ignored. In ignoring that plea, the governors cashed in on the President’s helplessness –he had no delegates to vote his choice. They also demonstrated knowledge of the president’s seeming lack of capacity to enforce his convictions. So, pushing their way through was a very easy assignment as even the National Chairman could not stand in their way, and could not defend the announcement he made having also lost the support of members of his National Working Committee.

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The success of the governors in shoving aside both the President’s plea and Adamu’s coup was majorly because they (governors) brought the delegates. The president didn’t have delegates. Adamu did not control any delegates. Lawal, who led the Senate to make a fatal error in lawmaking by excluding members of the National Assembly (his primary constituency) as statutory delegates, also did not control any delegates. Therefore, Buhari’s refusal to sign the amendment to the Electoral Act, which was supposed to allow statutory delegates to vote at the convention, was a self-inflicted injury. With that refusal, he handed control of the delegates to the governors and ministers from non-APC states. The outcome of the convention says how grateful the governors are for that error.

At this point, however, it is immaterial who becomes the beneficiary of the swing from the southern divide and who also, becomes the beneficiary, as running mate, from the northern divide. What is more important in the development is that the party’s leadership was forced to uphold an agreement. That south was unable to agree on a micro swing is the problem of the southern divide. In reality, the onus to zone the presidential ticket lies more with the APC that with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). APC it was, which had the moral burden to zone its presidential ticket. This is because it is the ruling party, and having operated that office from the north since 2015, it was naturally justiciable that it moved south. Those like Adamu, who attempted to truncate the agreement, showed clearly their lack of sense of equity, justice, and unity. APC’s motto is “justice, peace, and unity”. Unfortunately, it empaneled a national chairman who openly demonstrated his unbelief and lack of acceptance of the deeper meanings of the motto.

This cannot however be said of the PDP. Again, the reason is simple. PDP has no ‘game’ to share at this point. Asking that PDP ought to have zoned its presidential ticket to the south is akin to suggesting the sharing of the spoils of war before even going to battle. Hunters do not share their kills before exploring the bush. They do so after an expedition and all the prizes are tallied. PDP will be morally bound to zone and respect it too if it is able to push APC away from the presidency in 2023. Before that, its supporters and members must work extremely hard to meet their expectations of wresting power from the incumbent party. it is only when that is achieved can anyone rightly demand, and insist, like El-Rufai and his gang have done, that power must rotate to the southern divide.