Why the APC convention might only be a mere coronation

It will interest you to note that the beauty of democracy is in allowing people to exercise their franchise. An election is a way democracy is been expressed. The long-awaited national convention of the All Progressives Congress APC is just few hours away from now, but it may interest you to note that the party has decided to adopt what we call a unity list or consensus as a means of choosing the candidates that will occupy various offices in the party.

It should be recalled that before now, there has been a serious internal crisis that befell the party regarding the issue of zoning, especially the presidential ticket and the position of the national chairman of the party. Where it not for the intervention of President Buhari, the APC would have scattered by now. Just a few days to the election, it may interest you to note that the President subsequently gave the governors 24 hours to draw up a list of the candidates for all positions ahead of the convention.

The president asked the governors to refund the monies of all those who are ready to embrace consensus. It should be recalled that many had alleged that President Buhari had anointed Abdullahi Adamu as the consensus candidate to become the national chairman of the party. This made the governors be divided. But recently, the President invited the chairmanship aspirants to a meeting to seek their understanding of his choice of ex-Nasarawa State governor as the party’s chairman. He pleaded with them to avoid recourse to crisis and litigations over the party’s choice.

The implication of all the unity list and consensus candidates just depicts that the APC National Convention might only be a mere coronation as there were indications that there might not be an outright election. Even though the APC has claimed that the decision to go with consensus was to avoid crisis or divergence of choice, it will interest you to note that the decision does not promote democracy. It doesn’t give room for competent hands to be voted for. At the end of the day, most consensus candidates are incompetent. There the national convention of the APC is just a mere ceremony.