APC’s political engineering

There was General Buhari whose regime threw Chief Akande into jail after the 1983 coup. Akande had been deputy governor to the inimitable Cicero of Esa-Oke, Chief Bola Ige. To think that fate and political engineering would bring the two gentlemen together on the same side of the political divide 30 years after the 1983 […]

There was General Buhari whose regime threw Chief Akande into jail after the 1983 coup. Akande had been deputy governor to the inimitable Cicero of Esa-Oke, Chief Bola Ige.
To think that fate and political engineering would bring the two gentlemen together on the same side of the political divide 30 years after the 1983 coup! Lesson: never say never.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you that life is cast in stone and that nothing can change. In my time I have seen princes reduced to vassals, and I have witnessed offspring of the wretched of the earth soar to fame and fortune. If the circumstances are right; the lion and the ox can lounge together, the cobra and mongoose can whisper in each other’s ears. Although parallel lines cannot meet in algebra, that statement is a fallacy in social science. When dealing with human beings, the arithmetic of political engineering tells you that one plus one could be anything from two to ten – and all the answers could be correct.
When the All Progressives Congress was born, I did warn the promoters and principal actors not to succumb to the temptation of making the amalgam look like a Buhari-Tinubu affair. So far, they’ve heeded that unsolicited counsel. But there is a hangover of the usual fault line of the typical Nigerian political party; I choose to call it the founder’s syndrome.
In every Nigerian political party, there is the tendency to classify members into ‘founders’ and ‘joiners’. That is one of the biggest problems confronting the ruling PDP. When the young Turks want to change the direction of things in the party, some old crow shows up to ask them where they were when they (the old guard) were founding the party. Interestingly, one of the ‘sins’ counted against the current Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, was that he was not a founding member of the PDP – or that he was a ‘late joiner’. Nonsense!
Political association should not be about how long anyone has joined a political party. It should be based on ideas. Are we ideologically compatible? Do we share the same or similar social vision? Do we share the same general views on how our country can be fixed?
I have my suspicions anytime somebody reduces an important political discussion to a matter of calendar years in the party. It is natural that some people would be the prime movers, but the fact that others teamed up with them along the way should not be a minus. Indeed, that ought to be a plus: a validation of the rightness of the course. If more people share your vision and team up with you along the way, you should be congratulating yourself, not reminding the newcomers at every opportunity that you and Methuselah put the party together and that all joiners should know their place in the pecking order.
In Kano, thesis battled antithesis to a standstill only for them to swap places as antithesis became thesis and vice versa. Ibrahim Shekarau was a permanent secretary under Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso during the latter’s first tenancy of the Kano Government House. Then, against all expectations, and in spite of reported attempts to destroy him, Shekarau succeeded his former boss as governor under the flag of the ANPP. After serving as defence minister under Obasanjo, Kwankwaso re-applied for the governorship job and got it. Now, ANPP has merged with CPC and ACN to become APC with Shekarau as one of the big wigs.
In the meantime Kwankwaso and six other governors have been waging a cat-and-mouse battle with their party, PDP. Apparently, their differences with PDP are irreconcilable. They are on their way out. The leaders of APC see a precious window of opportunity to enlarge their coast – and they are wooing the G7 governors with all their might. Except that the Shekaraus of APC are determined to ensure that various obstacles are put in the way of the new entrants.
The situation in Kano is replicated in Sokoto, Ekiti, Ogun, Nasarawa, Katsina, Benue, Anambra and several other states. Former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa has been laying down conditions that incumbent Governor Wamakko must fulfil before being enrolled in APC.  In Kebbi, one of the APC members complained that “some people are still looking at others as if they are not members of the APC. Some still look at one another as the members of the defunct CPC, ACN or ANPP or APGA which is not supposed to be”.
Objective analysts of the goings-on in the APC contend that the party cannot wrest power from the ruling PDP if it has a divided house and that the urgent task confronting the leadership is the welding together of disparate groups into one body. Luckily time seems to be on their side but when one considers the nature of politicking in Nigeria, one tends to feel that they ought to have perfected that political alchemy yesterday.
APC operatives have been saying in newspaper reports that the three major political parties involved in the merger are only waiting for the national body to send guidelines for membership registration and the election of its executives so that they can commence membership registration and map out strategies for the 2015 elections.
If you say “that is APC’s headache”, remember that you said the same thing when PDP was derailing and you felt it was none of your business. We ought to x-ray the activities of the major parties all the time. It is in our collective interest to have vibrant political parties based on ideas and deliverables. The more we leave the coast to professional politicians, the more they mortgage the future of our children. I am personally of the view that politics is too important to be left to politicians alone. With some introspection you may come to the conclusion that the best man for the job may be a non-politician.
If APC does not get its political engineering right, PDP technicians will re-crank their own engines anew.
Politicians on either side of the divide may find Kavinder Kanwal’s words of wisdom useful: “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalise on what comes”.