APC scores an own goal ~ Festus Eriye

Even if someone with character traits directly opposite to those of All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, were running the show, the civil war in the ruling party would still have been fought.

Among other things, some critics have dubbed the former labour leader an inflexible dictator who lacks the temperament to run an organisation as complex as a ruling party.

Oshiomhole’s predecessor, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, was the deliberate and diplomatic type. But he was perceived as weak and unable to get rebellious elements within APC to tow the party line.

Under his watch, former Senate President Bukola Saraki and House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, defied the party and emerged leaders of the National Assembly after cutting deals that virtually handed control of the legislature to the opposition.

Despite the outrage that greeted their manoeuvre, the offenders didn’t even get a tap on the wrist by way of censure.

By the time of Oyegun’s ouster APC was yearning for a national chairman who could restore order in a system where certain individuals – especially governors – had come to think that the rules didn’t apply to them and that it was their way or the highway.

They were used to that under Oyegun, but to actually see Oshiomhole make a stab of enforcing party supremacy was something of a culture shock. Ibikunle Amosun in Ogun State, Rochas Okorocha in Imo and Abdulaziz Yari in Zamfara are yet to come to terms with the fact that persons other than their preferred choices are now governors in their states.

What the present power struggle is exposing is that influential politicians in APC merely mouthed ‘change.’ What they wanted was a change of faces, but not a radical departure from business as usual.

This tussle is about control of the party and its structures for the short and long term. All sides would like a party chair who is beholden to them and always favours their interests. But that is impossible in a party with APC’s history, or in any democratic organisation where people are free to canvass differing agendas.

Under President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, faced similar opposition from governors who felt he didn’t sufficiently appreciate their relevance with the party and treated them like kindergarten kids.

This is not to suggest that Oshiomhole hasn’t made mistakes. His foes would hand you with a list of failings an arm long. Many find his longwinded style grating, but they had tried the gentler Oyegun and opted for change. APC leaders knew what they were getting when they went looking for the comrade.

However, the fierceness of the battle is down to the fact that whoever is chairman in the next 24 months could smoothen or derail the path to power for the ambitious.

Power intoxicates and amnesia is its key side-effect. That is the reason politicians repeat the mistakes that undid their predecessors.

The cocky PDP lost its grip on power not because its members were worse than those from other parties. They blew it because they could not manage internal contestation for power.

They dreamt of a 60-year hegemony and may still be in office but for a series of unforced errors. They became overfamiliar with power and the leaders arrogant and consumed with their own false sense of invincibility.

The divisions within lead to the dramatic exit from the party in one day of five governors and the likes of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Saraki.

Knowing how powerful state governors are in the Nigeria system, it was the height of haughtiness to let five depart your ranks and go on to strength the opposition, without bending over backwards to mollify them.

I remember Jonathan dismissing the departed as troublemakers who the party wouldn’t miss.

In reality the entrance of the five PDP governors transformed the APC into a totally different proposition. Imagine if the then ruling party had managed to retain the ‘Offended Five’? APC may never have won the 2015 polls because it would have struggled with the challenge of national spread.

Between 2014 and 2015, intractable internal battles messed up the ruling party. Now the APC which swept to power promising to do things differently are suddenly more interested in a fight to the death over the national chairmanship than in sustaining their grip on power.

Whether Oshiomhole remains chair or is ousted, the APC has already poisoned itself. Internal cohesion has been affected and the bitter fallout from this battle for control means the party could be weaker going into the next elections – unless it is able to heal its wounds quickly.

Given the manner of its formation it was inevitable that the current conflict would occur at some point. In 2015, the need to unseat PDP was such a powerful imperative that the gladiators temporarily sheathed their swords.

But APC leaders and members have now become so used to being in power. Life in opposition is a distant memory such that they are not bothered that their present free-for-all could lead to a speedy return to the political wilderness.

You get a sense of déjà vu that like the PDP circa 2014, some of the ruling party’s leaders have also reached that point where they have started believing their own invincibility.

The reality is if an upstart APC could topple an entrenched ruling party, nothing stops history from repeating itself. The main opposition party controls 15 out of 36 states. That is a much stronger position than APC was in when it started to challenge the PDP Goliath in 2013.

Also, in three years the Buhari factor that guaranteed 12 million votes in the North may no longer be there. The region would be open territory thereby changing the dynamics of the contest.

Rather than thinking of how it can produce another game-changer the way Buhari was in 2015, the APC with its current battles is letting in the football equivalent of an own goal. History would not be kind to the protagonists.