CPC: Paying the price of bad leadership
Despite previous warnings to General Buhari that the CPC is led by opportunists and fraud-minded leaders who do not share his dream for a better Nigeria, the party’s presidential aspirant has become and remained indifferent to this public concern. Instead, he looked the other way while leaders of the Buhari Organization were imposing leaders on […]
Despite previous warnings to General Buhari that the CPC is led by opportunists and fraud-minded leaders who do not share his dream for a better Nigeria, the party’s presidential aspirant has become and remained indifferent to this public concern. Instead, he looked the other way while leaders of the Buhari Organization were imposing leaders on the party. Senator Hanga, the National Chairman of the party and the Kano Chairman of the CPC chapter, Alhaji Dan Zago, are widely unpopular because of their open disregard for internal democracy. In fact, several opinion writers have warned General Buhari against the dangers of leaving the party in the hands of those who do not share his dream for a better Nigeria.
General Buhari has become a hostage to the manipulation of Alhaji Sule Hamma, Buba Galidima and other un-elected leaders of the CPC who in turn impose their puppets on the larger membership of the party. In effect, the CPC has become like the Chinese Communist Party where leaders emerge through undemocratic process in which a few impose themselves on others as leaders. The crisis that greeted the conduct of the CPC congress in Kano State and Katsina State have finally exposed the fundamental leadership challenges facing General Buhari’s party. Out of the 484 wards of the CPC in Kano State, elections took place in less than 50 wards. Thousands of the party supporters defied harsh weather condition to exercise their franchise but, at the end of it, they waited in vain without election. Curiously, however, results were eventually announced of congress elections that never took place.
Predictably, this fraudulent manipulation of the election, designed to favour Senator Hanga’s candidates to advance his own gubernatorial ambition, led to widespread rejection. But for the quick intervention of the police, the CPC headquarters in Kano would have been destroyed or burnt down by angry protestors who couldn’t understand the announcement of results for elections that never took place. General Buhari’s posters and other CPC aspirants’ were openly burnt, apparently because of the feeling that the party’s presidential aspirant didn’t demonstrate concern and firmness over the poor leadership crisis facing the new party.
Fraudulent tendencies had previously manifested themselves in the CPC leadership under Senator Sani Hanga and, despite repeated warnings to General Buhari to take practical steps to address complaints about lack of internal democracy, the Daura General maintained a ring-side view of a serious crisis that put his own reputation at stake. The fact that General Buhari’s posters could be destroyed by protestors reveals the extent of popular disenchantment with the CPC leadership under Senator Hanga and his sidekicks like Alhaji Dan Zago, the Chairman of the Kano Sate chapter of the party.
It would be recalled that crisis had befallen the party in the past when Senator Hanga manipulated the distribution of membership cards and nomination forms intended to favour his loyalists and exclude more popular aspirants to advance his own desperate gubernatorial ambition. Can the CPC leadership take the moral high ground to criticize the PDP and ANPP about lack of internal democracy or transparency when it is committing the same evil? Senator Hanga is more obsessed with his own greedy ambition than committing himself to internal democracy or transforming the CPC into a strong national party. With a desperate ambition of his own, the national chairman of the party cannot be trusted to conduct credible elections in which he has personal interest. What is more disturbing, however, has to do with General Buhari’s utter apathy to the crisis of confidence confronting the CPC.
Members of the Board of Trustees of the CPC had connived with Senator Hanga to manipulate the results of the congresses in Kano State and they themselves are now embarrassed by the level of popular protests that greeted the fraudulently conducted congresses. Traditionally, the people of Kano Sate are politically conscious and assertive and a thousand Hangas cannot force them to accept fraudulent results. Although the protests have forced the CPC leadership to cancel the purported results of congress elections that never took place in almost 484 wards, the leadership of the party is morally weakened to command any more respect or confidence of the followers.
In Katsina State, former Speaker Aminu Bello Masari was also a victim of the scheming by CPC leaders. He lost the governorship ticket to a richer rival who used his financial muscle to force the former Speaker out of the race. Should the General wait for crisis to erupt before he reads the mood of party loyalists? The national chairman of the party has lost the trust of the CPC followers because he is not committed to internal democracy. His lack of neutrality or impartiality is largely to blame for the angry protests that greeted the conduct of the so-called ward congresses in Kano State. Can the CPC claim moral superiority over the PDP or ANPP when its leaders are tarred with the same brush of fraudulent tendencies? It is simply hard to imagine how a party associated with General Buhari could find itself embroiled in the moral crisis of election manipulation.
How can the national chairman of the party combine his gubernatorial ambition and his role as a neutral leader? The two roles can hardly coexist. With his gubernatorial ambition, he has shown open determination to frustrate more popular, younger and energetic aspirants who he perceives as threats to his own aspiration. Senator Hanga’s antecedents in the ANPP and PDP are well known; he cannot, therefore, be trusted to conduct credible elections for any party offices because of conflicting interest. The attention of General Buhari was repeatedly drawn to this issue but he remained indifferent to these complaints about Senator Hanga’s lack of commitment to internal democracy.
General Buhari should be more proactive rather than waiting to be a crisis manager. The current protests greeting the conduct of ward congresses by CPC in Kano State may put General Buhari in a morally vulnerable position. For example, will General Buhari have any reason in the future attack the PDP and ANPP for lack of internal democracy when the party founded in his credible image cannot conduct free and fair elections? Excessive idealism and detachment may not help General Buhari’s image, especially where he remains indifferent to the activities of the so-called leaders running the affairs of the CPC today. He tends to leave everything in the lands of Sule Hamma, Buba Galadima and other Board of Trustees members who imposed Senator Hanga as national chairman of the CPC. Senator Hanga’s incompetence and lack of neutrality has exposed his weakness as a leader and General Buhari is left with the choice of either remaining indifferent or run the risk of seeing the CPC become a nine days wonder!
Ibrahim wrote from 92, Abraham Adesanya Road,Victoria Island, Lagos. E-mail: [email protected]