APC caving into deepening mix-up, opts for consensus candidate at convention

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has continued to be plunged into deepening mix-up in the preparations for the national convention on February 26 to elect members of the National Working Committee. Some APC stakeholders have been agitating that the national convention be postponed, while the Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) be allowed to continue the administration of the party, including conducting primaries for the nomination of candidates for the 2023 general elections. The agitators argue that the conflicts within the party have polarized the APC and there are going to be factional delegates to the convention. It is feared, therefore, that the ruling APC will be going into the convention with a multiplicity of unresolved crises from the ward and state congresses, which threaten the cohesion of the party in the post-convention era. APC leaders have, therefore, considered the consensus option for the election of national chairman, among others, at the convention to minimize friction at the national convention on February 26.

There is insinuation that President Muhammadu Buhari has endorsed consensus in the election of the national chairman. Most stakeholders of the party who include APC governors, ministers, members of the two chambers of the National Assembly, were said to have been consulting on adopting a consensus candidate for the APC national chairman.

Aspirants identified to be considered for adoption as consensus candidate for the national chairman are Bawa Bwari, Niger State, former Minister of State for Mines and Steel; Senator Tanko Al-Makura, former Governor of Nasarawa State; and Saliu Mustapha, Kwara State.

Two other aspirants for the APC national chairman not considered in the consensus option, former Governor Abduallahi Yari of Zamfara State, and former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State, are protesting the consensus arrangement by the party leaders.

Bawa Bwari, former Minister of State for Mines and Steel – 2015 to 2019, was Chief Whip of the House of Representatives – 1999 to 2007.

Saliu Mustapha, former Deputy National Chairman of the Congress for Progressive change (CPC), a legacy party led by President Buhari into the APC alliance, was Organising Secretary of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP).

Senator Tanko Al-Makura was former Governor of Nasarawa State, the only CPC governor at the time of the APC alliance.

The APC may be emulating the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which adopted consensus in electing members of the National Working Committee (NWC) at the party’s National Convention in Abuja. The consensus approach minimized friction in the party, the outcome of the convention was widely accepted.