The APC Conundrum

It seems safe to aver that the APC has abandoned its own government. Pointers:

1. For some reasons, some APC chieftains don't make reference to APC Federal Government, instead they refer to "BUHARI GOVERNMENT". If you don’t believe me, watch and listen carefully when an APC top shot is making a statement referencing Federal Government. All you will hear is “His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari government” – not APC Federal Government. Every day I perceive subtle attempts to wash hands off the Federal Government as presently constituted. It seems only two things are restraining the sharks in-house – President Buhari’s ill-health and the excellent working relationship between him and Vice Present Osinbajo whom they perceive as pliable (read manipulatable). Truth is some APC top shots would rather wish Buhari did not return from medical vacation alive.

2. The National Assembly is dominated and controlled by APC law makers. Yet, the same National Assembly, especially the Red Chamber of it, is the most vicious attackers of the APC Federal Government. Every move made by President Buhari, no matter how altruistic or nationalistic, is frustrated by the men and women of the Red Chamber. To them, Buhari is bad news. All because the man is anti-sleaze – at least in relative terms — and against the continuation of the raping of the country.

3. Recently, I opined that APC was a strange party being both the ruling and the opposition party rolled into one. I make bold to state that I was right. Proof? How can one explain the fact that in spite of the anomalous posturing of the National Assembly against President Buhari's government, the APC high command from the party chairman to its national and zonal leaders have all remained silent in some kind of grand conspiracy? How could a ruling party chairman fold his hands and watch his party's law makers rubbish their own government? Even Ashiwaju is eloquently silent in some feigned ignorance. Curious.

4. Even some of President Buhari's ministers and other cabinet members appear not left out in the conspiracy. Some simply don't care the direction the government in which they serve as ministers is heading. They are occupying a seat in some office, marking time and waiting for the next election instead of doing the job for which they were appointed to do.

But it seems Buhari caused it all when he declared openly that he was running for President to salvage whatever is remaining of the country. Yes, he caused it when he declared that he was not going to fund his own party, the APC, because he could not find any provision in the constitution that allocates money to a political party, even a ruling party.

Yes, Buhari caused it all when he refused to allow business as usual; when he refused to allow the fleecing of the country and the pillaging of its coffers to continue.  

Strange things are never strange in Nigeria. We are a country with a penchant for doing things differently – not necessarily better, but just differently.

I saw it coming. When the APC was hammered into existence in 2013 I had wondered how an ultra-conservative Buhari/Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) could do business with the more progressive, Gucci and far-from-credible Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

The harbinger of what we are witnessing today played out when then interim national chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, the man with pepsodent dentition, called the party’s first press conference and made sure he prevented then General Mohammadu Buhari from speaking to journalists. I thought that was wrong of Chief Akande. But like the military tactician he was Buhari swallowed it and bided his time.

That time came when it was time for the party to pick its Presidential candidate. Buhari clinched the ticket to the consternation of the likes of Atiku Abubakar. He repeated the feat in the main Presidential election on March 28 2015. Two years down the line, the cloak and dagger politics in-house is all playing out.

And 2019 is not far off. We shall know the true loyalty of APC chieftains as 2019 elections approach. APC may yet turn out to be a one-term party.

The only saving grace for the APC though is that its main rival, the PDP, is itself in a jam – a self-inflicted jam.

It is curious that the two major parties in our country are their own greatest opposition. Ruling party, APC; its most vociferous opposition, APC. Main opposition party, PDP; its most vicious enemy, also PDP. Strange.

But strange things are never strange in Nigeria. We are a country with a penchant for doing things differently – not necessarily better, but just differently. Need any proof? Check out the charade that plays out daily in the National Assembly. From all indications, what happened in the Second Republic National Assembly was a child’s play. Bukola Saraki, it seems, is continuing where his father left off.