[FILE PHOTO] Adams Oshiomhole, APC leader
Barely two weeks to the commencement of open campaigns by political parties, it has become apparent that as it happened in the build up to the 2015 poll, the power of incumbency is fast turning into a big burden.
That fact was accentuated recently when the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, instead of feasting on the achievements of the current administration as basis of its search for re-election teased South-West electorate with the possibility of 2023 presidency.
Fashola’s long-term gesticulation underscores some of the challenges the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would encounter on the campaign trail, particularly it struggles to balance its deliverables against earlier and future promises.
To a great extent, in 2014 Fashola’s scorecard as governor of Lagos State was the mascot, which the inchoate APC touted as sign of what was to come at the federal level if it gets the mandate of Nigerians.
By choosing to feed South-West voters with the promise of a Yoruba president in 2023 instead of pointing to the track record of development in Lagos or even at the federal level, the super minister must have decided to escape the intricate linkage between the denial of second term ticket to his successor Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode and the performance of APC in office within the past three years.
Was Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s loss of second term ticket predicated on non-performance or failure of politics within the APC? If the governor was punished for any or a combination of those factors, what is the guarantee that Nigerians would not be moved to serve the party with similar verdict in next year’s election?
Those are some of the nagging issues the ruling party would confront in the South-West during electioneering for the 2019 election.
So what Fashola did was to avoid those possible roadblocks in next year’s election and rather talk about events of five years away.
It is also possible that the strong man of South-West politics, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, appears not very keen about next year’s poll and regards APC’s national outing the same way he did at the driving seat in 2014.
Like Fashola, Tinubu’s heart and mind seem fixed on 2023. But there are other bigger worries for APC in the South-West, which must be keeping the party’s leaders from the zone awake about 2019.
Handshake of restructuring
THERE are indicators that winners might turn out as losers in the forthcoming general election in South-West.
This is because there seems to be a kind of role reversal between the two broad tendencies in the zone.
While the progressives within APC lost the driving wheel of the Federal Government after their clamour to join the mainstream, those within the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, took up the role of advocating for the usual pillars of good governance that marked out the zone as the front runners of Nigeria’s socio-political progress.
In the ensuing contest for popular endorsement, true federalism, otherwise sold as restructuring has become the major singsong of the mainstream Yoruba elders.
With restructuring becoming the new catchphrase similar to APC’s change mantra in 2014, the possibility that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, raised it as the major campaign issue, could displace the ruling party has become acute.
How would the sophisticated Yoruba electorate view those on the side of stringent opposition to restructuring? Could Tinubu, who championed the cause of fiscal federalism, remain aloof in the name of party loyalty and raise his voice to campaign for a presidential candidate whose entire body language is stiff in resisting a return to true federalism?
The seriousness South-West leaders attach to the issue of restructuring, even with a call for a return to the model enunciated by the 1963 constitution, was accentuated by the rise of a group known as the Core Federalists, made up of a greater percentage of members of Afenifere Renewal Group.
The Core Federalists have struck a chord around restructuring with other zones in the South, including Izu Umunna from South-East, Pan Niger Delta Forum and Middle Belt Leaders to forge a common stand on what should be the way forward in the Nigeria project.
While addressing a world press conference in Lagos recently, the Administrator of the Core Federalists, Akin Odumakin, alongside representatives of other groups announced a plan by the groups under the aegis of Handshake Across Nigeria to hold an interactive session with presidential candidates of different political parties on the issue of restructuring.
Odumakin explained that the event, which has ‘Nigeria Beyond Oil’ as its theme, would afford Nigerians, nay the electorates, the opportunity to assess the prospective presidents on their vision and programme to lift the country out of poverty and into a future of sustainable development and prosperity.
More importantly, he said Handshake Across Nigeria would be a veritable opportunity to hear what the presidential candidates have to say about restructuring and how far their body language bears eloquence to their seriousness or otherwise.
The implication of the coalescing of otherwise politically disparate groups in South-West for the sake of restructuring redounds to the benefit of PDP.
And knowing that the South-West does not deliver bloc votes, the possibility of the zone voting 67 to 32 percent for PDP and APC in next year’s election is also perceived to be high.
If the vote tally between the two frontrow parties in 2015 is anything to go by, the ration could be steep in favour of PDP following the arguable performance of the ruling party in the past three and a half years.
The excesses of rampaging nomadic herders, especially the abduction, rape and killing of farmers in some states of the South-West would affect the voting pattern in the area during the presidential election.
Would South-West APC return to its old opposition status or align with the new momentum built around restructuring? Recent governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun States point to the prospect of the zone retaining APC states, but showing understanding for a different party at the centre as happened in 2011 is not a distant possibility.
Political dissonance among South-West
APC leaders
ONE other emerging scenario that could dispose the South-West to a battleground in 2019 is the mutual suspicion and misunderstanding among APC leaders, particularly state governors in the zone.
Although events that surrounded Ondo State governorship primary point to the reality of creeping political dissonance in the South-West, the outcome was interpreted from the narrow prism of opposition to Tinubu’s political lordship of the zone.
Even in the build up to the Osun governorship primaries, the adoption of direct primary approach, and the angst against Tinubu’s machinations were evident leading to his derogatory howler that Osun does not have his kind of money.
It could be recalled that the former Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who won the Ekiti governorship, stood up stoutly against attempts to midwife APC governorship standard bearer for Ekiti through a consensus arrangement.
That affront must have given rise to the experimentation with the direct primary despite valid reservations by some party stakeholders in the state.
Prior to the recriminations over the mode of selecting governorship candidates in the three states, some notable ‘Eaglet Politicians’, including Fashola, Fayemi and Muiz Banire, were being categorized as ‘rebels’ against the ‘home front’.
But while all those instances could be dismissed as attempts to magnify petty conflict of opinions over method, the recent combative posture adopted by the outgoing governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, over the confusion in APC left no Nigerian in doubt that at last things have actually fallen apart at least in the South-West caucus of the party.
Governor Amosun had, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Opeyemi Soyombo, cried out that the crisis in APC over the conduct of primaries would yield terrible consequences for the party.
Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State has warned of the danger which APC faces in the hands of the party’s national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and a few members of the National Working Committee (NWC) following their arbitrariness in the way they handled the crises that attended the party’s primaries.
Amosun had also previously pointedly accused Tinubu and Chief Segun Osoba of rigging the party primaries in his state, stressing that after assaulting the party with that breach, both leaders kept sealed lips to the problems created.
Somehow, Ogun State governor tends to believe that Tinubu was using APC national chairman to pursue political vendetta against some of them (the new leaders) who stood against his unrelenting schemes to perpetuate ‘internal colonisation’ of South-West states.
While lamenting the decision of APC national chairman to disregard the primary organised by his camp, which threw up Adekunle Akinlade, Amosun descended on Oshiomhole and the party’s publicity secretary, Issa Onilu.
He Renounced Onilu’s use of foul language against eminent members of APC and accused the party’s spokesperson as a fifth columnist, saying: “The attempt by Onilu to confuse the issues is therefore belittling of someone holding a position of publicity secretary of a reputable political party.
His attack on governors raises concerns about his agenda in the APC, if not that of a fifth columnist for the PDP under which he tried unsuccessfully to become a minister.”
Amosun’s open verbal attacks on Tinubu and Osoba as well as the way incumbent Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, was shunted aside shows not only that all is not well with APC, but also that it might be hard for Southwest to face next year’s electoral battle as a united band.
Should APC sustain the stonewall against Amosun’s preferred governorship candidate, it should be taken for granted that he and his supporters would war against the party’s electoral success in the state even if he has assured President Muhammadu Buhari of maximum votes from Ogun.
The Ogun State governor could explore a feasible alternative political route by combining forces with former President Olusegun Obasanjo to deliver the candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Gboyega Nasir Isiaka.
Although the various tendencies in APC South-West squabble find common ground in expressing support for President Buhari, the different stands over governorship and other electoral positions would rub off negatively on voter perception and preferences.
With the force of restructuring and degraded scale of citizens’ socio-economic wellbeing, APC might end up returning poor vote tallies from the ballot than it did in 2015. When put into a basket, the election environment reveals South-West as a battleground zone that stands out as 2019 election supermarket for the decisive votes.
APC’s smash, grab strategy in South-South
IT could be in the quiet realization of depleting goodwill in the South-West that APC strategists decided to focus on South-South in obvious scheme to shore up its vote haul.
The ruling party’s shift of emphasis to South-South, which ordinarily is the stronghold of PDP, was propelled in the first instance on account of the erosion of support from Middle Belt over the herders killings of indigenous farmers in the zone and defection of two incumbent governors.
When President Buhari started hinting at a possible Oshiomhole chairmanship of the party, it became apparent that APC leader wanted a more forceful character to replace the former APC national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, whose diplomatic style painted the picture of weakness.
With Oshiomhole as national chairman, APC take-South-South-by-force scheme turned full circle with the induced defection of former Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Obot Akpabio.
The swashbuckling and rambunctious former governor must have promised APC more than he could deliver given the circumstances that propelled his governorship of Akwa Ibom State in the State.
Outgoing governor, Obong Victor Attah, who appointed Akpabio into his cabinet, must have noticed stark leadership failings of the Anang politician and decided to prop up his brother-in-law to succeed him.
The attempt to impose his brother-in-law happened to be the only dark spot on Attah’s shinning tenure as governor.
Similarly, Akpabio’s defection to APC in the belief that he possesses Akwa Ibom voters in his pockets shows that he must have forgotten the single-mindedness of Akwa Ibom people.
The Akwa Ibom electorates have shown signs of sticking with Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel and PDP.
However, by going after smash and grab politicians in the zone, including Amaechi, Oshiomhole and Akpabio, APC leaders seem interested in just returning 25 per cent votes from the South-South to achieve spread and no interest to head the zone’s development quest.
But from the look of things, netting 25 per cent votes cast in the region appears to be dwindling by the day.
Just like Tinubu, some APC leaders in the Presidency perceive the Minister of Transport, Amaechi, with suspicion over his sincerity in the Buhari second term project.
With the inner kitchen battles he is waging against his successor, Governor Godwin Obaseki, and the uprising against his style, Oshiomhole seems distracted and is in a state of suspended animation.
The move to look to his successor from Cross River State is said to be one of the steps being taken to mitigate the potential and real damage the former Edo State governor is wrecking on the party.
It is surprising how history seems to be repeating itself within APC similar to what happened to PDP on its way to electoral disgrace as the ruling party in 2015.
If Oshiomhole gets replaced, he would have ended up just like Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who was forced to resign and give way to Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, the game-changer who ended the game for PDP.
