2019: How Oshiomhole’s reforms threaten APC unity

The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had on assumption of the leadership of the party, introduced certain reforms with which he intended to entrench party discipline and party supremacy.

However, the reforms turned to subvert internal democracy in the ruling party, including taking away the autonomy of APC leaders in the various states. More importantly, has been the partisanship of the APC national chairman in the implementation of the reforms which in their manifestations, tend to favour the very intra-factional bloc he belongs in the broad APC. Invariably, the partisanship culminated into incoherent implementation of the reforms which scuttled equity, justice and liberty in the party.

First, Oshiomhole had a collision with the Minister of Labour at the early stage of his leadership when he attempted to usurp the executive powers of President Muhammadu Buhari in directing the Minster to inaugurate the board members of the parastatals under his ministry or be fired.

The primary elections conducted across the country to nominate APC candidates fro the 2019 general elections drew the battle line between the various factions in the APC coalition which constituted the legacy parties. The selective adoption of direct primary election in certain states and indirect delegates primary election in other states, both approved and ordered concomitantly by Oshiomhole marked remarkable highlights of the national chairman’s inconsistency and biases, which subsequently, precipitated monumental conflicts in the party, with emerging threats on the tenure of the APC national chairman.

Primary elections in some states were annulled and re-conducted at the order of the APC national leadership to make certain governors who lost in the initial transparent primary election regain their ground and impose their candidates. Apparently, many who do not belong to the dominant oligarchy in the APC were eliminated in manipulative ways. The experiences in Imo, Lagos, Zamfara, Rivers states, among others, have generated consequences APC would have to live with into the 2019 general elections.  

Several APC governors after the primaries took their protests to President Buhari, complaining outright imposition of candidates by Oshiomhole directly from the national secretariat in Abuja, and scuttling the democratic process in those states.   

Meanwhile, the heat has been on Oshiomhole since the APC primaries to get things done the right way. This raging discontentment seems to coexist with silent plots towards 2019.    

Accordingly, Oshiomhole on Sunday raised alarm over plots to get him out of office following his criticism by an APC chieftain, Alhaji Mumakai Unagha, who perceived the many crises from Oshiomhole’s reforms as constituting serious threats to the ruling party’s chances in 2019. Unagha was said to have noted that APC may not win the 2019 general elections under the leadership of Oshiomhole.

The Chief Press Secretary to Oshiomhole, Simon Ebebgulem, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, declared:  “These influential stakeholders, according to the grapevine, have begun to mobilize to pass a no-confidence vote in the leadership of Oshiomhole, having failed to impose their preferred candidates on the party in the nomination process.

“Comrade Oshiomhole did not become national chairman of the governing party to bring it down a notch from the pedestal of its 2015 electoral victory let alone to preside over its liquidation.

“Rather, his single-minded goal, from the outset of his declaration of interest in the position, was to deploy his capacity in helping to strengthen and reposition the party as a truly supreme and disciplined political entity.

“Although, it might appear fortuitous to some persons that he became national chairman at the threshold of the 2019 general election; the truth is that there is no accident in predestination.

“We must appreciate the fact that it has pleased the Almighty God to place him in the saddle of APC leadership at this time for a purpose.

“The purpose has begun to manifest in its vast flourish and ramifications: instilling discipline, ensuring party supremacy, promoting due process, dealing with impunity and executive arrogance wherever they manifest to undermine intra-party electoral processes in the states.”

There are strong indications that the ruling party may be boiling into the general elections, perhaps, certain adjustments could be made by the national chairman to avert intractable conflicts.