The defection of five of these governors, Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso, Kano; Admiral Murtala Nyako, Adamawa; Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko, Sokoto; Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers and Alhaji Fatai Ahmed, Kwara, their supporters and other aggrieved members of the PDP into APC on November 26 has compounded the harmonization process in those states.
Though unconfirmed, it was gathered that part of the agreement before the defection of these five governors to the APC was an accord by the leadership for the harmonization of party structures in the states under the control of the five governors who dumped PDP for the opposition party, with the APC structure to give the new entrants and their supporters a fair deal ahead of 2015 general elections.
The affected states are Kwara, Rivers, Adamawa, Kano and Sokoto. It was however gathered that the first sign that all was not going smoothly in the party was the alleged opposition to the nomination of former Presidential candidate of the defunct CPC , General Muhammadu Buhari, as chairman of the Harmonisation Committee.
It was gathered that Rabiu Kwankwaso and Dr. Aliyu Wamakko, governors of Kano and Sokoto respectively had raised their opposition and told the national leadership of APC in an unequivocal tone that they would not be comfortable It was also gathered that Shekarau had initially vowed not to have anything to do with Kwankwaso before the national secretariat of the APC sent an emissary led by former Edo State governor, Odigie-Oyegun to placate him.
A similar challenge is being faced in Sokoto State as it was gathered that a lot of work has to be done in the APC in the state to ensure synergy as the former governor, Attahiru Bafarawa and his loyalists were said to be unwilling to work with Wamakko, the incumbent. In Adamawa, there is also apprehension as three groups are said to be scrambling for the leadership of the party.
It was learnt that the three groups are led by the governorship candidates of defunct Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, and ACN , Buba Marwa, Markus Gundiri, and the incumbent governor, Nyako. Marwa and Gundiri are said to be plotting to give no breathing space to Nyako. Political observers believe that the interest of the three political heavyweights is threatening the unity of APC in the state. Analysts are also of the opinion that crisis is imminent in the party as it would be recalled that they had fought one another in the 2012 state gubernatorial election.
It would also be recalled that even before the coming of Nyako to the party, the state chapter of APC was already engulfed in intense intra-party struggle for the control of the party’s soul between officials of the three parties that collapsed into APC.
It was gathered that the seeming gang-up against Nyako was because of the perceived romance between the interim North-West National Vice Chairman of APC, Umar Duhu and Nyako. This political situation is therefore generating bad blood among the original stakeholders in the APC camp, especially given that it was Nyako that forced Marwa out of PDP to CPC, where he contested against him and lost.
But in his reaction to this perceived romance between Duhu and Nyako and the presumed gang-up against Nyako by Marwa and Gundiri, Duhu said he receives instructions from Abuja and implements.
He also said that the national leadership of the party had drawn a road map to accommodate all the merging political parties through an accepted sharing formula, pointing out that it was hasty for people to start crying wolf when the state harmonisation committees were not yet inaugurated.
The situation in Kwara State also shows that there seems to be more confusion and problem over this merger as the coming into the party of the incumbent governor, Ahmed, and his godfather, Senator Olusola Saraki, among other new PDP members has polarised the party into two in the state.
The newcomers believe that it would usurp the leadership role of the party in the state and if one look at the calibre of Ahmed, Saraki and Alhaji Kawu Baraje, it is clear as day that they don’t deserve to play a second fiddle in Kwara APC. This leadership is however being rejected by the former leader of the party in the state and the ACN governorship candidate in the 2011 governorship election, Mohammed Belgore.
Belgore has been the rallying point for the opposition in Kwara State having lost election to Ahmed. The opposition camp in the state, led by Belgore, has not been comfortable with the decision of the APC leadership in allowing the G5 to defect to APC. They feel that the entry of the G5 and the new PDP would automatically swallow the opposition structures in the state.
Saraki is undoubtedly the political leader in the state because he has two of the three senators from the state. He also has 16 local government chairmen, in addition to 23 of the 25 seats in the state House of Assembly, and 183 ward councillors.
In his reaction to the the defection of the Saraki group, the Kwara APC leader, Belgore, who had been having a running political battle with Saraki, had insisted that he was the arrowhead that made APC popular in the state and that if he left, the party would crumble in the state. This is even as he took a swipe on the leadership of the party for being inconsiderate by disregarding the APC stakeholders there in considering the defectors. “There cannot be APC in Kwara State without our input.
We would not compromise the cause to liberate the people of Kwara State. There was a lot of apprehension concerning the entry of G7 Governors and what it portends for one APC member in Kwara and two, for the political terrain in Kwara generally,” Belgore had said.
He has vowed never to surrender his political pursuit to any interest although he admitted that APC supporters in the state are already itching to defect to PDP, where they believe they will find relative peace with the old PDP. From what is on ground, the APC loyalists and leaders in the state are not willing to surrender the leadership of the party to Saraki, as doing this may see them moving to PDP, which will eventually become the opposition party in Kwara.
“It is so soon to get so desperate, even though we are conscious of the antecedents of these people, the entrants should be prepared to listen to instructions from those they met on ground instead of attempting to take undue advantage,” a statement issued by the old APC leaders in Kwara warned.
They even threatened that the original members of the APC in the state had other options open to them, if the party’s national leadership went ahead to install Saraki or Ahmed as the new leaders of the party. With these various interests in the states, the APC leadership may be in for a great battle toward harmonising its members, especially in the five states being controlled by the PDP
Source: National Mirror
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