…Says fence-mending too little too late
…Plays down 2023 bid
Efforts to find peace in the All Progressives Congress (APC) continued yesterday after the sack of its National Working Committee (NWC) by the National Executive Committee (NEC) on Thursday.
The Caretaker/Extraordinary National Working Committee, which replaced the NWC and headed by Gov. Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State, is scheduled to have its inaugural meeting tomorrow.
The Committee is supposed to produce a new NWC within six months.
But the National Leader of the ruling party at the federal level, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, told the sacked National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, to own his mistakes.
Although it has been widely speculated that Oshiomhole and Tinubu, also a former governor of Lagos State, are allies on the latter’s rumoured 2023 presidential project and the former helping him to achieve the bid as party National Chairman, Tinubu dismissed the speculation, saying he had “made no decision regarding 2023”.
Elsewhere, Oshiomhole spoke, saying he stood by all he did as APC National Chairman.
“I have taken my decisions. I am happy”, he said.
Separately, President Muhammadu Buhari told APC governors that the party must not lose the September governorship election in Edo State. Also yesterday, the Presidency dismissed the speculation that Buhari was at war with Tinubu.
The APC crisis, which climaxed with the sack of the party’s NWC on Thursday, had started with the re-election bid of Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State which was believed to have been opposed by Oshiomhole, also from the state.
Analysts said elements within the party who wanted Oshiomhole out as APC leader to pave the way for their 2023 presidential ambition latched on to the crisis and this led to the multiple court cases, the attendant chaos and the sack of the NWC last week.
Conflict
Tinubu, in a statement, yesterday, titled, ‘Becoming the party we were intended to be’, acknowledged that the sacked APC NWC had become ridden by unnecessary conflict.
The APC National Leader said: “Those who disagreed with one another stopped trying to find common ground. Attempts were made to use the power of executive authority to bury each other. I must be blunt here. This is the behaviour of a fight club not the culture of a progressive political party.
“Some members went against their Chairman in a bid to forcefully oust him. In hindsight, his fence-mending attempts were perhaps too little too late. I believed and continue to believe that Comrade Oshiomhole tried his best. Mistakes were made and he must own them. Yet, we must remember also that he was an able and enthusiastic campaigner during the 2019 election. He is a man of considerable ability as are the rest of you who constituted the NWC.
“It had been my hope that the disagreements could be resolved. After all, a political solution should not be beyond the ken of leaders of a major political party. But such resolution has failed to materialise. It was as if some unseen but strong force continued to stoke the embers. Instead of calling a prudent ceasefire, too many people sought more destructive weapons against one another.
“Order, party discipline and mutual respect went out of the window. Members instituted all manner of court cases, most of them destructive, some of them frivolous, none of them necessary. In the process, a dense fog fell upon our party.
“When this matter first came to a boil a few months ago, I issued a statement against this litigious tendency. President Buhari and former interim chairman Akande published strong words against this misuse of the courts as being contrary to the spirit of the party and the letter of its constitution. Each of us knew nothing good would come of such conduct. Instead of listening to this counsel, party members increased their trips to the courts. While busy providing ample livelihood for a gaggle of lawyers, these actions cast the good of the party to the wind.
“After the fusillade of lawsuits and countersuits, two NWC members laid competing claims to the chairmanship. One legitimately elected at our national convention; the latter whose claim was based on the questionable suspension of the former.
“With lawsuits so numerous one needed a spread sheet to keep track, President Buhari has reasonably decided that he has seen enough.
“I do not lament his intervention or its outcome. I lament that the situation degenerated to the point where he felt compelled to intervene.
“President Buhari is much more than a mere beneficiary of the party. He is one of its founding fathers. The APC does not exist in its current form without his singular contributions. That is not opinion; it is undisputed fact.
“Given these antecedents, he cares about the condition of the party as any parent would care for its offspring. President Buhari has done what any parent in his position and with his authority would do. The more troubling consideration is that so many trusted people acted in such a way as to force the president to put aside the issues of statecraft in order to address these problems.
“The President has spoken and his decision has been accepted. It is now beholden on all of us, as members of the APC, to recommit ourselves to the ideals and principles on which our party was founded. While we recognize that people have personal ambitions, those ambitions are secondary, not sacrosanct. Members must subordinate their ambitions to health and well-being of the party. Never should our party be defined by one person’s interests or even the amalgam of all members’ individual interests. A successful party must be greater than the sum of its parts.
“In this vein, I appeal to all former members of the National Working Committee and all members of our party to sheathe their swords and look to the larger picture”.
2023
Speaking on his rumoured presidential bid, Tinubu said: “To those who have been actively bleating how the President’s actions and the NEC meeting have ended my purported 2023 ambitions, I seek your pity. I am but a mere mortal who does not enjoy the length of foresight or political wisdom you profess to have. Already, you have assigned colourful epitaphs to the 2023 death of an alleged political ambition that is not yet even born.
“At this extenuating moment with COVID-19 and its economic fallout hounding us, I cannot see as far into the distance as you. I have made no decision regarding 2023 for the concerns of this hour are momentous enough.
“During this period, I have not busied myself with politicking regarding 2023. I find that a bit distasteful and somewhat uncaring particularly when so many of our people have been unbalanced by the twin public health and economic crises we face. I have devoted these last few months to thinking of policies that may help the nation in the here and now. What I may or may not do 3 years hence seems too remote given present exigencies.
“Those who seek to cast themselves as political Nostradamus’ are free to so engage their energies. I trust the discerning public will give the views of such eager seers the scant weight such divinations warrant.
“Personally, I find greater merit trying to help in the present by offering policy ideas, both privately and publicly, where I think they might help. I will continue in this same mode for the immediate future. 2023 will answer its own questions in due time.
“I have toiled for this party as much as any other person and perhaps more than most. Despite this investment or perhaps due to it, I have no problem with making personal sacrifices (and none of us should have such a problem) as long as the party remains true to its progressive, democratic creed. Politics is but a vehicle to arrive at governance. Good politics promotes good governance. Yet, politics is also an uncertain venture. No one gets all they want all the time. In even a tightly-woven family, differences and competing interests must be balanced and accommodated”.
VANGUARD
