It is a great misnomer to call the joining
of the All Progressives Congress, APC, by the G.7 and other rebel PDP members
two days ago a “merger”. It was more of a defection. The difference between
these two political expressions is clear.
A
defection means the transfer of membership, belonging or loyalty from one
platform to another. A defector drops his old individuality and assumes the
identity of his new group.
A
merger, on the other hand, can be illustrated with the political action that
led to the birth of the APC. Three separate registered political parties – the
Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and
the All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP, shed all their old identities and assumed
a completely new one.
Some
of the faces at the merger includes Ogbonaya Onu, nPDP chairman, Kawu Baraje,
Senator Bukola Saraki, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, former Lagos Governor, Bola
Tinubu, chair of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande,
The
three parties formally held their respective valedictory national congresses
and announced the end of their old parties in favour of the new one. The
leadership of the main parties sat down, negotiated, shared power and offices
and evolved a new flag, symbols, constitution.
But
the PDP defectors simply emptied into the APC, unconditionally, it would seem.
By so doing, the size of the APC has ballooned (at least, on paper) from 11 to
16 governors compared to PDP’s 18 (assuming that Governors Sule Lamido and
Babangida Aliyu are now rated “non-aligned”); 48 senators as compared to 58 of
PDP and (as some newspapers put it) and 199 members of the House of Reps
compared to 147 of PDP).
Watchers of these unfolding monumental
political events must be dumbfounded by the PDP’s rather cool attitude to the
threat of these defections. Every expectation by the rebels that their
grievances, whether real or contrived, would be entertained in any way was
calmly rebuffed. It was the rebels that were hungry for a deal, but the Bamanga
Tukur-led PDP simply refused to play ball.
When
the President returned from his recent London visit, he parried an opportunity
to meet with them. He pretended that his six-hour plane ride from London was
exhausting, when we know that a politician would plunge head-long into a
crucial meeting if he considered it of import to his political survival.
Meanwhile, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, quietly ducked into a dark
corner after riotously leading the nPDP out of the August national convention
of the party.
Immediately the news of the defections hit the
airwaves, the reactions were predictably mixed. PDP members and their
sympathisers were relieved to see them go. Perhaps, the party will now sit down
and prepare for 2015 without looking over their shoulders whether Alhaji
Abubakar Baraje or Governor Rotimi Amaechi and their agents would be snooping
around for information with which to sabotage the party or accuse the Jonathan
administration of real or imagined misdeeds. Now swallowed in a new party, the
newcomers will be forced to shut up and allow the APC’s leaders and spokesmen
to tackle the PDP and its Federal Government.
On
the other hand, APC members and sympathisers rejoiced. It was also
understandable. A venture that started with rumours of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu,
the leader of the ACN going into a merger with General Muhammadu Buhari,
founder of the CPC has now spawned a true mega party, with the potentials to
rival the ruling PDP in every department of the game come 2015. It is a success
story unlike any other in the annals of merger efforts aimed at curbing the
nation’s drift towards one-party state.
But
then, I daresay that the real work has begun for the APC. First of all, it has
to come up with deft strategies to accommodate the newcomers and give them a
place of belonging. How they go about this will be a major test of their
strength as a political party. For instance, how will the old APC stalwarts in
states like Kano, Nasarawa and Sokoto fare, with the governors of those states
coming in with their structures from PDP? How will Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau
weigh alongside Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso in Kano, or who will the APC as a
party listen more to in a battle for supremacy between former governor Attahiru
Bafarawa and the newcomer Governor Magatakarda Wamakko in SokotoState? Amaechi
has no such problem in RiversState because APC was virtually nonexistent before
he decamped. It is now left to be seen how he can convert Rivers from a solid
PDP base for President Jonathan to that of APC, even if he becomes the unfancied
vice presidential candidate of a Northern flagbearer as being speculated.
The
APC also has to brace up for the fierce battle for the presidential and other
tickets come next year. It remains to be seen how Kwankwaso’s presidential
ambition will fly in his new party, since he was committed to it enough to
decamp from the PDP. We wait to see whether Tinubu will still be able to
manipulate the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Waziri Tambuwal, as his
favoured presidential candidate, especially now that the North has upstaged the
South West.
Yes,
and that is another thorny issue that the APC is condemned to tackle in the
days ahead. Things have changed in the APC. The South Western media have been
branding Tinubu as the “National Leader” of the APC. When Tinubu controlled six
states (Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti and Edo) and the North had only four
(Borno, Yobe, Nasarawa and Zamfara), he was able to win the concession of the
interim National Chairman and other prime spots for his group. Now, with the
coming of Kano, Kwara and SokotoStates into the APC, the comparative advantage
has gone into Northern hands since they now have seven states.
Northerners in APC are likely to rally around
one leader since they desperately want to recapture power in 2015. Tinubu will
have to learn from now on how to play the second fiddle.
If
Buhari succeeds in clinching the presidential ticket of the now seriously
enlarged APC, his chances of winning the election in 2015 will significantly
improve from his woeful running in the past, though it be an uphill task to
topple President Jonathan at the polls.
