Mr. Buhari is largely responsible for this strong dichotomy between the Old and New APC. A political party by its nature is not a democracy even though it must have some sort of internal democratic structure. The leaders of the party must be able to crack the whip and make party members toe a required line. Mr. Buhari is not doing that. He isn’t setting the agenda for his party or openly making deviants toe the party line.
There were three main reasons for the election of Mr. Muhammadu Buhari in April – the horrendously incompetent PDP administration; the presence of a viable alternative in the form of the APC led by an incorruptible Mr. Buhari; and finally the enviable record of the APC governors, especially the administration in Lagos, which most non-partisan Nigerians believed at the time was stellar. There might have been other ancillary issues but the above formed the basis.
Tragically, the above will also spell the end of this APC government in 2019. There is starting to appear a clear distinction across the membership of the APC, between competence and clear incompetence. This distinction is clear when you consider the behaviour and performance of the members of the defunct Action Congress against the behaviour of other members, especially the ones who defected from the PDP to the APC after its formation. Despite all the vitriol recently sent the way of Mr. Bola Tinubu, his AC governors were disciplined and maintained a high level of performance when compared to the hapless PDP governors and politicians which made it really easy to say to the electorate that the performance would be continued under an administration led by Mr. Buhari. This message is getting lost in the battle between what I will call the New APC and the Old APC.
Let me describe the difference between the New and Old APCs.
The New APC is Mr. Olubukola Saraki defying his party and hiding inside a car park so he could sneak into the senate premises and execute the agreement he made with the PDP to seize the post of senate president. The Old APC is former Governor Fashola accepting to support Mr. Ambode, despite having his own candidate for the same post and keeping the quarrel between him and his godfather in-house. The New APC is Governor Jubrila Bindow, who defected from the PDP to the APC, budgeting N700m for prayers against Boko Haram and also appointing a male commissioner for the ministry of women affairs in Adamawa State. The Old APC is Governor Amosun constructing the first flyover bridge in Ijebu Ode. The New APC is when Governor Abubakar Sani who governs Niger State, which was recently bailed out by the Federal government, jets in to the UK for the sole purpose of visiting Stamford Bridge to watch the game between Arsenal and Chelsea. The New APC is Mr. Simon Lalong formerly of the PDP, following a suspended Comptroller General of Immigrations, Mr. Parradang to Aso Rock to beg President Buhari to reinstate him (Mr. Parradang was suspended for unauthorised recruitment into the immigration service, which is shameful considering how many lives were lost last year when the then minister of interior and the same Mr. Parradang messed up the immigration recruitment exercises, leading to the death of many young Nigerians). The New APC is 83 senators, including 35 APC senators, passing a vote of confidence on a senate president currently facing trial for corruption without considering the message that passes to ordinary citizens. The examples of bad behaviour by the New APC are piling up.
The buck stops at Mr. Buhari’s table. As he announces his ministerial list, it is imperative that he understands that if his political associates are misbehaving, his ministers can absolutely not and they must show the same efficiency previously displayed by the AC governors to destroy the increasingly strong belief that APC and PDP are really the two sides of the same coin. Either he does that or the people will sack him in 2019.
There was a sense of unity under the defunct AC. All its governors focused on high profile/high impact governmental priorities (roads construction, infrastructural development, traffic management, revenue collection, security reinforcement). The governors projected an image of efficiency. All governors and other office holders spoke with one voice on all matters in the political space. It was the combination of all these factors that made the AC such a compelling story for voters. While all governors had their distinct character, they were similar with regards to a drive for performance, a usage of technocrats to drive that performance and a collective platform for engaging with the nation. The new APC is a clear manifestation of the tower of babble, neither showing cohesion nor showing performance to make voters see it as a natural successor to the old AC. It’s obvious that the citizens of Nigeria will soon be able to see that what was promised is not what is being delivered.
Mr. Buhari is largely responsible for this strong dichotomy between the Old and New APC. A political party by its nature is not a democracy even though it must have some sort of internal democratic structure. The leaders of the party must be able to crack the whip and make party members toe a required line. Mr. Buhari is not doing that. He isn’t setting the agenda for his party or openly making deviants toe the party line.
The buck stops at Mr. Buhari’s table. As he announces his ministerial list, it is imperative that he understands that if his political associates are misbehaving, his ministers can absolutely not and they must show the same efficiency previously displayed by the AC governors to destroy the increasingly strong belief that APC and PDP are really the two sides of the same coin. Either he does that or the people will sack him in 2019.
By Femi Akinfolarin
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