China is a communist, one-party country. Hong Kong was originally a Chinese territory ceded to Britain for 100 years. It was recently restored to China. Before the restoration, Hong Kong has become a replica of Britain, both politically and economically. It practises multi-party democracy and operated capitalism. It even operates right hand drive as against the Chinese left hand drive in traffic management. When China recovered Hong Kong from Britain, it decided that the best administrative approach to the management of the territory is to operate one country, two systems. This has not worked well as Hong Kong has consistently embarked on protests against their government which they accuse of being puppets to the undemocratic Chinese central government. The latest protest lasted for more than 6 months and landed the once economically thriving Hong Kong into recession. A house divided against itself will hardly stand. Eventually, one side will win the other and forcefully impose its will on the defeated side.
Adams Oshiomhole is a notable Nigerian having occupied the positions of the President, Nigeria Labour Congress, Governor of Edo State and presently the National Chairman, All Progressive Congress. As a labour leader, the more combatant he was seen, the more acceptable he was to his followers. As a Governor, all the executive powers of the government of Edo State was vested in him and he exercised it as he deemed fit. One thing he showed great irritation to was the overbearing influence of the political godfathers of Edo State. He made the abolishment of godfatherism in Edo State his political benchmark. He was reported to have said, “my greatest achievements are not the roads or red roofs. My greatest achievement is my victory over the godfathers in the state. I want to be remembered for ending it and killing it. A situation where one man decides has been abolished. All I want is power to move to the people. The people should decide who becomes their leader and that leader will not be answerable to any godfather, but to them. I have made a promise to myself that the day I leave office, I will never interfere or distract whoever governs afterwards.”
These qualities of Oshiomhole endeared him to some political leaders of APC who decided that he will be the best to shepherd the party to its 2019 elections. He was unanimously elected the National Chairman of APC in 2018. Unfortunately for Adams, in party administration, he was no longer required to be combative as a labour leader, he was also not vested with absolute powers of an executive, he is simply one out of about 21 national working committee members who is expected to consult all of them before reaching a decision. He was expected to apply tact and skill in communication and patience in reaching decisions and ensure the use of dialogue and compromise in solving political problems. He made it clear from the beginning from his actions that these methods were alien to him and showed great irritation to the workings of bureaucracy. He fired the first shot at the Minister of Labour and ordered him to swear in some board members within seven days or face suspension. He warned the Minister that if President Buhari has been tolerating indiscipline from him, that he Adams will not. This is now an Oshiomhole that is seeing himself as the President of Nigeria because the issue at stake had nothing to do with party administration. Of course, he lost that battle because the Minister of Labour called his bluff and nothing happened. That action sent a dangerous signal and put him on a watch list of every democract. He had the greatest opportunity to have learnt from that experience that he is now on a different political turf that requires tact and skill.
The biggest test that confronted the national chairman then was the organisation of the party primaries preparatory for the general election of 2019. The APC constitution in Article 20(iii) guaranteed the adoption of the direct or indirect methods of primary election. Since 1999 every party had adopted the indirect method for their primaries. It has always been, one party, one system of primary. Under Oshiomhole, the party decided to adopt both the direct and indirect systems of conducting primaries. This meant one party, two systems of primary. Every state was purportedly given the opportunity to decide the method it will adopt to conduct its primary.
Unfortunately, most of the states were plagued with factions and each faction chose an opposite method of primary with the consequence that each one that lost went to court to stop the other. Enugu State case was pathetic. The state chose indirect primary. On the day of the primary, everything was going on well before some contestants who felt they were losing made a call to APC headquarters which instructed that the primary be cancelled and a direct primary election imposed on them without consultation. As expected, the direct election ended in shambles. Every contestant had his own result. Announced winners by the APC secretariat were dragged to court by the losers and the issue was resolved by the court of appeal two days to the gubernatorial election. The official APC gubernatorial candidate opted out of the election on the eve of the election and abandoned all the House of Assembly APC contestants to their fate. The result was that APC lost everything in Enugu State, not because of the strength of PDP but because of the weakness of APC. Same scenario happened in Zamfara, Rivers, Imo, Bayelsa and so on. Party members came to the conclusion that the whole idea of adopting two systems in one election was to give the party national chairman the opportunity to unilaterally choose candidates of his own choice and that of his political allies. Any incumbent governor who was not in their good books was gone.
After the general elections, it became obvious that majority of APC leaders and members were not comfortable with the leadership style of the national chairman which they described as narcissist, fascist, despotic and undemocratic. But more worrisome was the impression that he was not willing to change. Complaints rained down from the national deputy chairman, north, national vice chairmen of north west and north east, national legal adviser, DG progressive governors forum, notable members of the party, present and former governors etcetera. All these complaints were still containable by Oshiomhole until his own political sons, the Governor of his own state and deputy, Governor Godwin Obaseki and Dep. Gov. Philip Shuaib, whom he unilaterally chose to be governor and deputy governor of Edo State screamed for help. They accused him of taking over the administration of Edo State from them. Obaseki even said that Oshiomole chose all the national political appointees from Edo State and conducted the primary election in Edo State preparatory for the 2019 general election singlehandedly and chose whoever he liked without consulting anybody. He accused him of wanting to be a godfather in Edo State and vowed to resist it. lnstead of nipping it in the bud by reaching out and making peace, Oshiomhole created another ward, local government and state executives until the issue went out of hand. In Edo, like in most of the states of the federation, APC now has become one party, two executives. From resistance, the duo of the governor and deputy morphed into attack and decided to take out Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole’s ward suspended him
It is now obvious that the spirit of duplication or dualization which the National Chairman has imbibed as solution to all his self-inflicted injuries has not helped him. It was not surprising when the issue went to court and he was suspended, instead of appealing and waiting for the judgement, the National Chairman, within 24 hours, got another favourable judgement from a court of coordinate jurisdiction purporting to restore him. One party, two judgements. The consequence of this is that nobody knows who the National Chairman, secretary, and even the members of NWC are because everything seems to be in pairs. The solution is very simple. When Oshiomhole came into office, he had no enemy, everybody endorsed him. Today, Oshiomhole has only one enemy and if he doesn’t defeat this enemy, he will lose the war. The name of his enemy is Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole. He should do what he promised to do in paragraph 2 if he wants to win the war.