APC: Reinvented For Emerging Expansion, Unity and Progress

By ISAAC OLUSESI isaacolusesi@gmail.com

For the All Progressives Congress (APC), it is now a new beginning, and newest. The other time, a certain number of the members of the party were procedurally disciplined, permissible in party politics. Quite a good number of them were suspended, appropriately, driven by explicit reasoning skills and effective responses, competent, warm and utilitarian to the party. Impliedly, the suspension, navel, compelling and sacrificial, explainable or supported by the rule or constitution of the party, practically elicited everywhere enthusiasm, rated high in harmony with the cross sections of the party and applauded against any nuances, and inferences or preferences to the contrary.

With my middle finger upward while keeping the other fingers folded downward, part of the corollary is that the party is now secured from the paradigm of brinkmanship that almost barrelled the party so fast to be out of rescue from imminent collapse. All of that was the fumigation of the party in Osun State with salutary effects. And to have been otherwise or biased and motivated by moral dilemmas, the state APC’s mobilization, orientation and sensitization (MOS), off gone, would have been dead on delivery. At kick off. But that never was.

The necessity and proportionality of the Hon.Tajudeen Lawal’s MOS train, trip cocked at the Osun APC local government formations, under his watch as the state party chairman, was hallmarked by objectivity and preparedness, simplicity and surprise, flexibility and concentration, and cooperation and administration. Lawal’s MOS aimed strategically, at increasing the strength, character and wisdom of the party to the maximal point, prospecting to win the next rounds of the governorship and general elections in the state.

The MOS, with its stratagems and tactics was dispassionate and traded off all extant disunity in the party, and commanded unity to party men and women, excited to the mass of the electorate in the state to stave off electoral opponents in Osun, in favour of APC. The results of the party’s MOS efforts as endorsed by the party zenith leadership in the state will be seamless, almost effortless at next polls, overwhelmingly, to be pro APC.

But the jamboree or carnival, its frivolities was never to be part of the Osun APC’s mobilization, orientation and sensitization (MOS) train as it tracked to the state local government structures of the party. Lawal, the chairman of APC in the state, also the MOS train engine driver, only understands Yoruba and English vernaculars. The man, as I know him, cannot, as a matter of fact speak the language of carnival, like one from Trinidad and Tobago where Caribbean Carnival originated. Lawal doesn’t answer Carny or carnie, neither is he a carnival employee of Carnival Corporation PLC, a British-American cruise operations. Really, he doesn’t not belong in the class of shareholders of carnival. He’s a politician pon bele, erstwhile local government chairman and Hon. Commissioner in the state.

In all the local government council areas visited, except Ejigbo, the Osun APC’s mobilization, orientation and sensitization (MOS) was mistaken by the host party members and enthusiasts for a blowout, also called gala affair, with music, entertainment, dancing, merrymaking, revelry, or jamboree gathering in the city streets as if it were in the culmination of the carnival week before Lent in Roman Catholic countries. All of that, a long mixed programmes of processions of the party people and celebrations as in jamboree in the local council configurations of the party amidst the party’s MOS crucially straight and clear objectives, was an aberration or breach of the business and purpose of MOS. Where does Mikhail Bahhtin’s ” carnivalization ” fit in the seriousness of Lawal?

In Ejigbo local government council, it was carnival or jamboree, un-showy or underplayed, best, and finest; but the rest of the local council areas in the state didn’t get settled to any such serious mobilization, orientation and sensitization issues, agenda setting otherwise, as what factors cause the imposition of candidates ahead of elections and how could the factors be nipped in the bud? In what more rewarding ways could grassroots politicians facilitate the grassroots growth and development of the party for increased party membership, unity and progress? What reasons for the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the drive or how could the drive be energized?

How could the funding for mobilization for elections not get diverted by the greedy few? What best ways could the party be protected from anti-party activism and its effect made less devastating? How fast and best, with positive effects, could the party get the least aggrieved or disenchanted party members reconciled? How could the party members be made responsible to the party leadership at all levels in the state, and the party leaders made to respect party supremacy? What influence or persuasion to exert to keep the leadership from undue or needless war against one another? And how could traditional rulers, women, artisans, youths, students, the physically challenged, and resident other tribes be mobilized continually to participate in the continued revival of the party?

The issues for agenda setting, also continue around why, and when will the local government councilorship’s aspirants’ monies, the last time, for the purchase of the expression of interest forms mismanaged, diverted or converted, be refunded? How could the art and act of disobedience to the state party leader, former Osun Governor Gboyega Oyetola’s multiple directives to the party to refund the monies to owners, be avoided in future?

What’s it that could be done to deflect the party’s posture, contrariety, uncooperative with the orders or directives issued to it, more than once, by the state party leader, from any reoccurrence in future? What immediate and lasting deterrent punishment for any such insubordination, the bigger or holier than the state leader propensities? And in view of several orders or directives to the party to have the party daily managed from the party office, ignored, what and how could the daily management of the party from private residence for upwards of years, be permanently stopped and never to happen again in any future epochs of the party management.

The Osun APC, currently, not in the instance of electioneering campaigns, but seriously, still on subtle, underground mobilization, orientation and sensitization to get the party fully reinvented, reanimated and reinvigorated on strongly electoral footings; and any sort of jamboree or carnival these times, also in non religious festive moods, is an infraction, obstructive to the all-important, thoughtful objectives of MOS with the reunification of the party for progress and reprioritization of its electoral fortunes as far-reaching ends, pervasive. Hear the more serious Lawal: “I enjoin all the stakeholders, members and supporters of the party to imbibe unity, put behind them what might be their grouses with the party or any of its members and work together as a team in the overall interest of the party in the state,” adding, “I commend the doggedness and high spirit of the party.”

And at every turn and moment, Lawal speaks pointedly, with all seriousness of Oliver Twist, asking for increased membership propel and membership patronages. “It’s the task of all the members and leaders of our party to boost our membership drive by bringing in more members and engage in the reintegration of the disenchanted members of the party who have genuinely sought forgiveness over their past malfeasance against the party,” Lawal stated, and passionately charged, “Reconcile with the indifferent party members and anyone of them in your domain who’s genuinely repentant as politics is a game of numbers. I charge you all to close ranks and operate in unison in the interest of the party.”

The writer’s analysis of Lawal, the MOS czar is, the man always speaks with glee and his voice, thumbs up with refreshing pitch and he’s not given to flippancy to ride on the wave of angst at the party’s painful, regrettable past and despise anyone or splash mud or voice verbal attacks as some are wont always want to do, forgotten at all times that “The fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves,” the Shakespearean wise saying. That’s, the Osun APC men and women, whatever your status, were responsible for the the party’s pains or regrets of the past, not fate. Lawal is worth of the state party higher-up that he’s; he is a revered party leader who’s very sensitive to party issues and electoral calculations. Continuing, he said, “the party remains an indivisible and impenetrable one. The party will continue to look into all challenges raised and do everything within the ambit of the law and constitution to remove all oddities ahead of the 2026 elections.”

Lawal as Osun APC chair is asking the party members and leaders, top down in the state to leave behind them needless embroilement in the mathematics of unsettled issues on some contextual factors with emphasis placed almost exclusively on intra party dynamics. By that he constantly springs up party unity and nurturing same, and no battle rages. For him, no black dog, no white dog; no love lost, no love found; no power broker, no power loser; and no marginalization of anyone or anyone being marginalized. The party, under him, now got reinvented, and is insistently, reinventing to stand together, act together and speak together. And never again will the party crawl, or taken to task for any lapses, or to the cleaners to be bested, defeated in any future elections.

There’s no failure of leadership in Lawal, the Osun APC chairman. He’s daily rising to the challenges of the party, the true leadership in him. What’s needed now by the Lawal example, is the change of attitude of the party leaders and members to the party processes, values and principles that would earn the party leadership the respect of the party members, and members, the respect of the leaders as everyone wants to “serve in heaven and no one wants to reign in hell.”

Behind the Lawal, APC’s progress in Osun, showing the party’s decisive match forward to reacquire political power, establish government and act as a link between the governed and government, comes 2026, is Oyetola Honourable Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who consistently quips, “the party is regaining its strength and vitality for tremendous progress.”

I share the Osun APC leadership concern on crucial niceties of the continued expansion, unity, peace and progress of the party and the urgent and concerted efforts towards the renascence or resurrection of the right party culture and coherence, convinced that the effectively mobilized party, consciously orientated party and properly sensitized party is the greatest deterrent to bad ‘partysim,’ the kind on the ground, preparatory to the last general elections in the state. But today, it’s both a lesson and an assurance that the state APC people have developed an understanding of the party general processes to be united and participate meaningfully.

Not without corresponding emphasis on party supremacy, party discipline, party loyalty, party patriotism, and party accountability

OLUSESI writes via isaacolusesi@gmail.com