Buhari begs Tinubu: ACN plots dumping APC in 2019

By DANLADI USMAN, Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has intensified political overtures to the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, towards cementing the pact between the two prominent leaders of the ruling party and strengthening the party for the 2019 elections. The President’s new political maneuverers were precipitated by the protracted internal conflicts in the ruling APC have continued to deepen the cracks in the party, culminating into gross resentment of one of the legacy parties that formed the APC, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

National Daily investigation revealed that a strong power bloc in ACN has got to the climax of the disaffection in the APC and is considering pulling out of the APC alliance before 2019. The ACN threat is heightening the tension in the ruling APC, threading the political vicissitude of the party in 2019. Invariably, President Buhari has come under pressure as he seeks re-election for second term on the platform of the party; compelling him to deepen his relationship with Tinubu.

Alhaji Usman Bugaje, former National Chairman of the proscribed Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), in Abuja, condemned what he considered isolationist policies of the Buhari administration which he said is responsible for the below average performance of the APC government in the past three years. The former ACN scribe advocated the imperative of leadership change in 2019 in order for Nigeria to move forward. He was of the view that the performance of the Buhari administration is below 50 per cent.

Bugaje remarked that Nigerian citizens are creative and productive, lamenting that the APC government has not delivered the change it promised in 2015. He stated that people offered ministerial and other appointments by the President were not considered based on their competence but their loyalty to President Buhari, noting that the failure of the government is not unexpected. He also said that party leaders who fought for the 2015 victory were sidelined in both government and party decisions.

He further decried that the ruling APC has been privatized at the federal and state levels, and not open to democratic practices; decrying that the current political culture in Nigeria is violent and corrupt; and that smaller political parties are suffocated by the big political parties.

Bugaje, accordingly, advocated for mass involvement of Nigerian people for a transition from politics of big men to politics of big ideas. The APC stakeholder further declared that the search for Buhari’s successor has become inevitable, declaring he has joined the emergent political forces in the country mobilizing for change of leadership ion 2019. It was his view that Nigerians have to re-invent the country’s politics.

The ruling party chieftain, it was gathered, is leading the ACN bloc of the ruling APC in the negotiation for a new political party, involving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) – constituting the Third Force, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and others.

Bugaje advocated that the new movement cannot be discouraged. “If we succeed good, if we don’t succeed, we must not give up,” he declared.

Intensifying his appeals to Tinubu, President Buhari, while in the United Kingdom attending CHOGOM, has a meeting with Tinubu, seeking the former governor’s support to consolidate the APC for 2019.

Subsequently, the President on his return from the UK, convened a meeting with APC governors in Abuja where he endorsed former Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State for APC national chairman, soliciting the governors support to ensure Oshiomhole’s victory at the May 14 national convention. Oshiomhole is being sponsored by Tinubu to succeed Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as national chairman in June.

More so, President Buhari had on March 27, 2018, reversed the decision of APC national Executive Committee (NEC) of February 27 which approved the extension of the tenure of APC national chairman, Oyegun, the National Working Committee (NWC) to another one year. It was obvious that the decision was contrary to Tinubu’s interest in the party, after he had earlier demanded for resignation of Oyegun. Though, the President based his decision on the need to comply with the rule of law and party regulations, the reversal of the tenure elongation decision was one of the terms of the negotiations with Tinubu for re-unification after years of isolationist relationship since 2015.

The tension in the ruling APC is germane because the pulling out of ACN will reduce the ruling APC to mere Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Buhari’s elementary legacy party ally in the coalition. The phenomenon creates potential danger for the ruling party in the heated political environment where the statesmen and prominent political actors that supported President Buhari to win the 2015 election have departed from him.

The consultations continue.