Adamu: Triumph of loyalty over merit, internal democracy in APC

Not even in their wildest dream and permutation could they have imagined that a core conservative, founding member of the second republic National Party of Nigeria, NPN, as well as the current main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, both of right of centre parties would upstage progressives in the hot contest for the soul of the APC with Justice, Peace and Unity as its motto and Change as slogan, particularly at a time presidential aspirants are criss-crossing the country soliciting for endorsement and support for their candidacy ahead of the 2023 general elections.

It is also troubling that the former chairman, Northern Senators Forum, NSF, is mounting the saddle weeks to the conduct of the party’s make or mar presidential primary to pick its standard bearer. But was Adamu’s choice for the chairmanship in the overall best interest of members or a costly gamble given wailing in some quarters that had trailed it despite strenuous attempts made to assuage aggrieved stalwarts who lost out in the power play that followed the adoption of unity list at the elective convention held on March 26 at the Eagle Square Abuja?

Shortly before the exercise, some political analysts had predicted that battle for the chairmanship would likely be a no contest immediately it became public knowledge that President Muhammadu Buhari had wholeheartedly endorsed the senator representing Nasarawa West in the Red Chamber, whose unflinching loyalty to the former proved decisive during the no love lost relationship between the Presidency and the Eighth Senate under Dr.  Bukola Saraki.

According to them, those that thought otherwise failed to realize early enough that President’s insistence on the inclusion of consensus clause in the controversial amendment of Electoral Act when the National Assembly voted for direct primaries, and his decision to withhold his assent severally on the Bill were part of his perfected game-plan to have his way not only during the convention but perhaps the party’s forthcoming presidential primary where the stakes are further higher without fear of any legal backlash.

Significantly also, prior to the convention, the intrigues, and outbursts of the party’s divided governors who plotted the removal of Mai Mala  Buni as chairman, Caretaker/ Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, CECPC and replacement by the Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abdullahi Sani Bello, on account of constituting a stumbling bloc to successful emergence of a new National Working Committee, NWC had given the false impression that internal democracy would be fully tested during the contest for positions.

But that was not to be soon when Mr. President, from his London base, where he had gone for medical chec-kup, through his spokesman threw his full weight behind the CECPC’s chairman thereby dousing the rising tension in the party and whipped the state governors in line.

Not even the loquacious Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna state who had previously boasted that Buhari had endorsed Buni ouster and his Ondo state counterpart Arakunri Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, who threw caution to the wind by naming some of his colleagues backing the Yobe Governor as ‘Yahoo Yahoo governors’ could utter a word or raise their finger in protest when it became obvious that the Presidency had a vested interest in who becomes the next national chairman.

In other words, both the governors who mistook Buhari’s momentary reluctance to publicly back Buni as lack of interest in the struggle for the head  of the party’s NWC, the seven candidates who had purchased forms for the coveted position, their sponsors and teeming members who were determined to exercise their full franchise in anticipated keen contest were, therefore, outsmarted by Mr. President and subsequently got disappointed.

It is very disappointing that the six APC stalwarts who were aspiring for the office of the party’s national chairman, barely 24 hours to the convention stood down for Alhaji Adamu, Buhari’s preferred candidate. They are Tanko Al-Makura, former governor of Nasarawa State, George Akume, ex-governor of Benue, Abdulaziz Yari, former governor of Zamfara, Saliu Mustapha, Muhammed Etsu and Sani Musa.

Before then, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff had declared his withdrawal from the race in deference to what he described as Mr. President’s wish on the election.

However, the decision of the aspirants to capitulate, the eleventh hour, was contained in a terse statement issued and signed by Akume on behalf of others, which read in part: “May I kindly refer to the appeal by Mr. President for the Chairmanship aspirants of our great party to agree to a consensus arrangement wherein our colleague, H.E. Sen. Abdullahi Adamu is made our consensus candidate for the chairmanship position and forward letters of withdrawal from the under listed aspirants to wit”.

Meanwhile, the development was interpreted by some political pundits as a twist and indicative of Buhari’s grip on the APC at least for now in the all-important chairmanship as well as other party offices but were quick to predict that the forthcoming presidential primary will be a different ballgame even if the Presidency has its way in the raging battle with the National Assembly over Section 84 (12) of the Electoral Act, 2022 which reads: “No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate or be voted for at the convention or congress of any political party for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election”.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, had sought but failed to hurriedly enforce the judgment of the Umuahia High Court condemned by lawmakers but which gave  victory to proponents of deleting the controversial clause from the Electoral Act which could have legally empowered public office holders vote in convention, presidential and gubernatorial primaries.

So, the Federal Government  and cabal’s insistence on the retention of the controversial clause, the analysts believe, is the crux of the matter and remains the greatest threat to the continued existence of the APC as a united party before and after the presidential primaries if allowed to scale through.

This perhaps partly explains why some of the aspirants and their supporters had sharply disagreed with the party for opting for consensus candidates for the national convention even though Abdullahi Sule, governor of Nasarawa State, the chairman of the media and publicity sub-committee for the convention, had said the party preferred the consensus method in electing officials because it created a rancour-free exercise.

Sule had hinted further that if the party reached an agreement for consensus candidates, money paid for nomination forms and expression of interest would be returned to the aspirants.

Each of the chairmanship hopefuls had raised N20million each to pick a form in addition to millions of naira expended on consultations, logistics and mobilization of members while 7,586 delegates were expected to have voted at the national convention to elect officials into the NWC.

The party, formed  in February 2013, is the result of a merger of Nigeria’s then three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP – a faction of then ruling Peoples Democratic Party. APC received approval from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on 31 July 2013 to become a political party and subsequently withdrew the operating licences of the three parties that merged (the ACN, CPC and ANPP).

Furthermore, the party had made history when its candidate and incumbent president Buhari defeated sitting Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP in the 2015 general elections, while the governors and arrow head of n-PDP, who defected to the APC were Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State (now transportation minister), Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State, Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State and Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State.

It is note worthy that on  4 July 2018, some notable members who were earlier identified as n-PDP moved again out from APC to form “Reformed APC”  (R-APC) ahead of 2019 general elections, a deft move which made the opposition, the PDP, the majority in the Senate with Dr. Saraki as president. But Abdullahi Adamu refused to return and chose to stick to APC and Buhari which perhaps formed the historical basis for his emergence as the national chairman.

Adamu, a founding member of the PDP, was governor of Nasarawa State for eight years under the PDP, later  Secretary, Board of Trustees, BoT of the PDP and also emerged a PDP Senator in 2011 before becoming a convert and sporting the APC broom.

Born on July 6, 1945 at Keffi, he  started his education at Abdu Zanga Primary School, Keffi and completed at the Laminga Senior Primary School in 1959. His post-primary education started at the now Government Secondary School, Makurdi from 1960-1962, from where he proceeded to Government Technical College, Bukuru from 1963 – 1965 and later to the Kaduna Polytechnic where he read and obtained a National Diploma in Building and Civil Engineering and graduated in 1968.

He bagged a Higher National Diploma at Kaduna Polytechnic in 1970. By 1992, he obtained a Law Degree from the University of Jos and got enrolled into the Nigeria Law School, Lagos and was called to the Bar in 1993 as a Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

But his stint in politics began in 1977 when he was elected into the Constituent Assembly, a body that drafted the country’s Second Republic Constitution of 1979. Thereafter, he became a pioneer member of the National Movement, which later metamorphosed into the National Party of Nigeria (NPN); became the secretary and later chairman of the NPN in Plateau State and also a member of the National Executive Committee of the party.

At the onset of the Fourth Republic, he became a founding member of the PDP and contested for the position of the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State on its platform and won the elections conducted on 9th January, 1999 and subsequently sworn in as the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State on May 29, 1999 and served two terms.

But  Adamu’s ascendancy in the APC could be  traced to his dogged defence of the party and the administration of President Buhari before 2019 and beyond which partly caused him headship of the Northern Senators Forum,NSF, while his sustained and fierce criticisms of Dr. Bukola Saraki-led leadership of the Eight  Senate may have led to his reaping the fruits of loyalty from Mr. President today.

For instance at the height of the sour relationship between the pro-Saraki senators and the presidency, Adamu, became so consistent in attacking Saraki and his allies that the then Senate President had to describe him as “the attack dog of the executive.”

As history would have it, the senator turned chairman had led nine other senators to oppose the Senate passage of the then amendment to the Electoral Act on election sequence that would have empowered the INEC to conduct the presidential election last unlike what obtained currently. Adamu (Nasarawa-APC), questioned the conduct of Dr. Saraki, in the passage process.

He had also headed the APC National Reconciliation Committee that was charged with the sole responsibility of addressing the discord among members of the ruling party in some states before the convention though crisis still abound in some states.

So truly, Adamu’s rise to the national political scene adequately reflect  Nicole Yatsonsky, a writer and actress, word on marble that: “Your truest friends are the ones who will stand by you in your darkest moments … because they’re willing to brave the shadows with you … and in your greatest moments … because they’re not afraid to let you shine”.

Similarly, the under current behind the inability of the Legacy parties not to insist and  trust their own people for the plum job and leader of the new 77 -member NWC that will decide the fate of the APC in the next four years calls for concern.

Consequently, the convention no doubt, had produced big winners and losers as so it is in politics where nothing is permanent except interest. Specifically, candidates who had invested millions of Naira erecting scores of billboards across the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, projecting their image, consulted party faithful nationwide as well as their sponsors, in readiness for the convention obviously belong to the latter category and forced to lick their wounds even though they would be refunded money for purchase of form.

Little surprise that lamentation continue to pour in over outcome of the convention. “Our spirits will not allow it to happen. APC Nigeria has been mocking us, abusing us, shaming us, marginalizing us, disgracing us, relegating us to the background, taking our support under empty stomach for granted. They empower our enemies to ridicule us.

“PDP invaders are moving in, taking up prime positions and pushing us to the corner. God will fight for us in the fullness of time” an apparently disappointed Joe Igbokwe, a party stalwart and strong ally of the National Leader of the APC and presidential aspirant, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was quoted as saying recently, a veiled reference to both Adamu and the new secretary of the party, Senator Iyiola Omisore decamped from the PDP whom Igbokwe might have labeled the ‘invaders’.

So in about  two months when party faithful will converge in Abuja or elsewhere again to pick their presidential candidate for next year’s polls, it will be clear if either President Buhari and his team of ‘invaders’ may gain the upper hand and have the last laugh at the altar of loyalty and parochial interests but at the expense of consolidating internal democracy, merit and party supremacy or such attempts will be resisted by delegates. Indeed it is a matter of time.