The rumours and suspicions that the All Progressives Congress and its leaders are having a serious challenge managing their success at the polls has become a notorious fact with the recent publications in the media of the letter written by one of the chieftains of the ruling party, Chief Bisi Akande, in which he claimed that the emergence of Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as leaders of the National Assembly followed a gang up against the Yoruba by the northern political elites.
According to Chief Akande, a former chairman of the party, in his own words: “While other position seekers are waiting in the wings until Buhari’s ministers are announced, a large section of the Southwest sees the rebellion as a conspiracy of the North against the Yoruba.”
In a country where mutual suspicion and distrust have been the hallmark of the political relationships among the three major ethnic groups right from the pre-independence days, the emergence of the APC as a national political platform, championed and embraced by the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba with almost equal zeal, was seen as a novelty and important political milestone in Nigeria’s political history.
That the APC won the political power at the centre gave the country the hope that finally the South West that had been in the vanguard of regional politics since independence has finally arrived at the port of national interest and politics above sectional values. However, the emerging scenario is diminishing that hope.
The ruling APC and its leaders have the challenge of resolving whether they are going to dictate the affairs of the nation bearing in mind sectional interests above national interest or they will respect the Fundamental and Directive Principles of State Policy as enshrined in the constitution and subsume the interests of the various sections of the country in the overall interests and values of nation building of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the aim that if Nigeria survives and prospers, every part of this country will also survive and prosper.
This will be a simple test for the APC in the management of national political power beyond the euphoria and celebration of having won political power at the centre against their major rival, the Peoples Democratic Party. Whatever choice made by the APC will manifest by the way and manner they elect, appoint or select to run the major affairs of the Federal Government and the ruling party. If the APC allows one ethnic group to take all the juicy and relevant positions in the party and government, this will reduce the rising profile of the party in the estimation of Nigerians.
Whether North or South, Hausa-Fulani or Yoruba, the fact is that for the APC to prosper, none of the ethnic groups or religions should be seen to be dominating this administration.
Media reports are awash with stories of how a former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his political empire worked to produce the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, planned to produce the Senate President in the person of Senator Ahmed Lawan, so as to ensure the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political son, Femi Gbajabiamila, as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This plan failed woefully! It is said that the failure of the emergence of these group of legislators as leaders of the National Assembly is at the heart of the crises rocking the National Assembly.
A section of the media has been lambasting different personalities in the APC of being responsible for what some elements in the party called a rebellion against the party’s position. One wonders how a team of legislators chosen in a sectional-inclined pattern should constitute the ruling APC’s candidates against the Federal Character-patterned leadership that has emerged so far in both chambers of the National Assembly. I don’t see how the emergence of a northern Yoruba as the Senate President in the person of Bukola Saraki and a Southern Yoruba as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives could constitute a conspiracy against the Yoruba by northern elites in a government where a Yoruba man from the South is still a sitting Vice President.
Rather, I daresay that this is certainly a political battle between the forces of sectionalism and nationalism at play in the APC. And it is my humble position that the All Progressives Congress should halt this crisis, so that it does not degenerate into a North-South political dichotomy even as the Muhammadu Buhari’s Presidency, which has promised CHANGE, is still in its infancy.
Dike Okeagu, a financial analyst, writes from Lekki, Lagos.
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