Major crises APC, PDP are battling with ahead of 2023 elections

The journey to the 2023 election started gaining momentum last year with the PDP took the center stage over the leadership crisis. It was full of intrigues, permutation, unexpected events, and back and forth drama between its erstwhile National Chairman, Uche Secondus, stakeholders, and PDP governors!

Recall that the crisis led to the defection of three incumbent governors to the All Progressive Party, APC. They include Bello Matawalle of Zamfara, Dave Unahi of Ebonyi, and Ben Ayade of Cross Rivers State. Secondus had been accused of poorly handling the crisis bedeviling the party thus calling for his removal.

Amidst the resignation of about 16 members of the National working committee of the party and protests that were staged against him, Secondus had stood his ground saying he didn’t do anything wrong and that his tenure should be officially allowed to come to an end.

However, he was tactically removed through court litigation by a power bloc within the party spearheaded by Governor Wike of Rivers State.

After back and forth over the zoning of the chairmanship seat, the opposition party subsequently had its national convention with the new executives with Ayu Iyorchia elected as National Chairman via consensus on the instructions of PDP governors. Most positions were arranged based on the same arrangement.

However, the ruling party, APC didn’t experience much crisis last year. It rather gained new members from the opposition parties, PDP and APGA in Anambra State. Unfortunately, the gains didn’t reflect in the 2021 Anambra governorship elections.

The giants like Stella Oduah, a serving senator, and Okeke, the incumbent deputy governor, and several members of the state and house of assemblies had joined the party. However, the party came third after the polls as the candidate of the Alliance Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA.

Meanwhile, this article takes a look at the crisis APC and PDP are battling with ahead of the 2023 general elections.

APC with Consensus Crisis Ahead of National Convention

Since the removal of its past national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole from the office in 2020, the ruling party has been managed and coordinated by the 13-man committee led by Yobe State Governor, Mala Mai Buni. However, the committee has failed three times to organize the convention.

After much consultation and meetings, the party later resolved, a few weeks ago, to do the exercise, and February 26 was chosen as a date for the convention. Before now, the party had held congresses nationwide though riddled with crisis and the state chairmen have been inaugurated!

However, as it is Monday, February 21, five days to the convention, things still look shaky and uncertain as leadership considering postponing the exercise for another date.

According to reports, the stakeholders are yet to make a stand on the mode of selection. The APC governors were reported to be pushing for consensus but seem to be the President is yet to either reject it or endorse a candidate.

PDP with zoning crisis ahead of the presidential election

The opposition party has passed the stage of convention but is presently battling with the issue of zoning where the next president should come from. This has further divided the PDP governors into two segments.

Sources say those who come from the south ( Makinde, Wike, Okowa, others) had hinged their position on the resolution of the Southern Governors Forum and had last year insisted that all parties should zone presidential ticket to the south for fair play.

However, the northern PDP governors had kicked against and claimed that zoning is not in either PDP or Nigerian constitution. This might be because most of them are 2023 presidential hopefuls including former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.

A party source close to the PDP Governors Forum confided in the Nation correspondent that the issue of zoning has continued to divide the ranks of the governors and cause disagreement.