Buhari suffers sebtback from internal oppositions

• May review alliance

• As Oyegun unveils second term agenda

By SUNDAY ODIBASHI

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari is currently going through hard times in the governance of country with increasing internal rivalries in the All Progressives Congress (APC) affecting the governance process. The President has had reasons to contend with ‘locomotive’ conflicts both within the ruling party and the between the arms of government in his efforts to change both the culture of governance and attitude towards governance.

The new agenda has, however, been encountering overt and covert cornucopia of resistance from diverse state and political actors.

Within the first one year in office, President Buhari enjoyed solemn support and understanding from the various arms of government and virtually all APC leaders. The second year in office has, however, been different, generating unusual turmoil both in the ruling party and the government. Apparently, President Buhari has become more burdened with handling crises than settling for effective and efficient service delivery in governance. His anti-corruption war appears to have exacerbated the mix-up in the governance process.

More so, the outburst during the second tenure that a cabal has hijacked the Federal Government also gave impetus to the uprising of resistance forces against the President. In some other quarters, there are reports of Cold War existing between the President and some APC leaders. Again, impulse of sentiments over sectional interests created another source of internal rivalry in the Party-Government.

National Daily investigations revealed that in the manifestation of these phenomena creating heavier burdens for President Buhari, the President may have begun the consideration of alternative regional alliance across the country to strengthen the APC towards 2019.

Sources disclosed to National Daily that the quest for new alliance different from the alliance that gave birth to the APC, was responsible for President Buhari’s uncharacteristic soft stance on the Niger Delta militants whose activities in blowing up oil and gas pipelines are widely believed to have ruined the country’s economy, even into recession. The President was gathered to have gone far in building stronger friendship within the South-South zone in anticipation of re-enacting the historical North-South-South coalition which existed from the First Republic into the Second Republic.

One of the resources stated that the new political calculation was to return to a more reliable alliance of the old time and also penetrate the zone with extension into the South East in pre-emption of the building of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which still stabilizes its political potency in the two entities. Accordingly, the President was said to have been consolidating on building new friendship network in the two southern zones, strengthening his relationship with the APC national chairman as well as former Senate President Ken Nnamani and others.

This was also alleged to be the reason why certain institutions of government have been trying the emasculate the political forces in Rivers State, including Governor Nyesom Wike. It was gathered that Rivers State, from where several other states in the South-South were created, except Edo and Delta states, has been the hub of alliance between the North and the South-South since 1960.

Moreover, the mix-up confronting the President in delivering the APC change agenda was complicated by the innuendo of his going for a second term in office, perhaps, contrary to tentative expectations from APC leaders that he will serve for one tenure.

The APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, had at the height of rising conflicts in the party in 2015, when there were reports that APC leaders had started heating up the party because 2019, declared that there is no vacancy in Aso Rock. The APC chairman unofficially declared then that president Buhari is coming back of a second term. There were indications that the statement offended many leaders in the APC many of who has interest in the Presidential raced in 2019. The offended party leaders were gathered to have taken time to strengthen their respective political fortes before waging war on the party and the leadership.

The APC National Chairman, Odigie-Oyegun, further provoked internal rivalry in the Party-Government in his recent statement that he will do everything possible, including “fasting and prayer” to ensure that President Buhari re-contest the 2019 Presidential election. He was said to have insisted that Nigeria will be better for Buhari’s second term.

The APC National Chairman was gathered to have stated that only Buhari has the moral courage to ensure the change Nigerians need is actualized. He had maintained that President Buhari is the only politician that has the capacity to win 12 million votes without major campaigns. “I will pray, fast to God that Buhari agrees to contest in 2019. If he contests, Nigeria will be better for it,” Oyegun was cited to have declared.

“My prayer is that we can get Buhari to re-contest in 2019. We don’t know his mind yet, but I will do anything in my power to ensure that he re-contests in 2019…We need more than four years to get this country to subscribe to a new morality, a new ethic and turn its back on corruption of the very type we are trying to uproot now,” Oyegun had maintained.
“There is no another Buhari in this country. Buhari is the only man who can command 12 million votes even without any major campaign. So, you can see the picture. Yes, there will be changes, the party will get new members or lose a few members, but there is no Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). So, there is no strong party any more to say you are going to join and strengthen it. It is only APC that is really a strong party,” he had summarily declared.
The APC National Chairman had, in the wake of the demand for his resignation, insinuated that the party leaders seeking his exit from the party’s leadership were scheming to take over control of the party ahead of the 2019 General Elections.
The chronicle of plots to frustrate Buhari in recent times includes the Senate’s rejection of the 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Sustainability Paper presented by the President, dismissing the documents as “empty” and not worth considering.
The Senate had also turned down the President’s request for approval to borrow $29.690 billion to execute key infrastructural projects across the country between 2016 and 2018. The Upper Chamber of the national Assembly had declared that the borrowing plan lacked detailed information.
President Buhari on October 4, 2016, had sent the MTEF and FSP, ahead of the 2017 budget, to the Senate and the House of Representatives for consideration.
The Senate had complained that the details of the fiscal proposals, which in Nigeria’s public finance system are the precursors to the annual budget, were not attached to the President’s letter requesting the consideration.
Another phenomenon of internal bickering in the ruling APC, besides others, was the protest, a fortnight ago, by APC governors that they were not consulted by President Buhari in political appointments from their respective states. They, accordingly, rejected the list of ambassadorial nominees presented to the Senate by the President for confirmation on the argument that the appointments are lopsided in their states.