- Buhari engages in two successive urgent meetings
Palpable fear is beginning to grip the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress as the build up to 2019 begins to garner momentum.
National Daily investigation revealed that emerging phobia in the APC prompted two urgent meetings between President Muhammadu Buhari and the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday, July 11, 2017; and another meeting between the president and APC governors, including some part6y leaders on Sunday, July 23.
Party sources disclosed that before now, members of the President’s kitchen cabinet seldom grant access to Buhari in the season of health crisis, such as the current one but that the pressure on APC leaders over an emerging threat from the Opposition Political Party has left everyone fretting.
It was gathered that APC leaders were beginning to conceive danger signals since the Supreme Court delivered judgment on the leadership tussle in the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), reaffirming the leadership of Ahmed Makarfi and the National Caretaker Committee.
National Daily inquiry found that the APC has been suffering monumental leadership crisis since the health crisis of the president. This phenomenon has left both the ruling party and the federal government controlled by same party in-cohesive both in organizing the government and coordinating party activities. The corollary has been that various power blocs in the party have engaged in unrestrained power tussle without any independent regulator. Thus, virtually all the power blocs have engaged in the prolonged power contest with relative leverage. The manifestation culminated into rising disquiets by notable APC leaders over a perceived cabal in the APC government, essentially, in the Presidency.
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More so, the unending struggle for domination or influence within the ruling APC further triggered ‘bad blood’ among party stakeholders, deepening the gulf of disconnect and disharmony of interests. This created a scenario of intra-party conflicts that seemingly throws the ruling APC into boiling pot that could degenerate into implosion of the party.
Significantly, the greatest opposition to the entrenched government has come from the APC members; which spillover generates rivalry and conflicts between the Executive and the Legislature; making the National Assembly work at crossroads with the Presidency.
The bizarre is that while all these prevail, many stakeholders have been asking where are the APC leaders like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Chief Bisi Akande, etc.
Furthermore, the internal rivalry in the APC seems to have been extended to clandestine cold war which may have preoccupied the party leaders. Thus, the leadership of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, APC national chairman, has not been able to get the sort of reinforcement from party leaders to enforce discipline in the party or mobilize party members for collective actions.
Apparently, a silent revolution is likely to be underway, waiting to explode, within the APC in the build up to 2019, increasing tension in the party.
President Buhari has spent over 60 days on medical vacation in London, the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, the support the President needed from APC leaders because of his health travails has been conspicuously missing, rather those who ought to render support both for the organization of the party and coordinating the government exploit the president’s absence to promote their parochial interests, thereby, precipitating crisis in the party-government.
The Supreme Court judgment which reaffirmed Makarfi’s leadership of the PDP sent a strong signal to APC that the preparations for 2019 have taken a new dimension and there is need for a rethink in the ruling party.