Can APC ride its internal storms? on July 08, 2013 / in People & Politics 12:13 am / Comments By Ochereome Nnanna LET me observe, first of all, that the ongoing merger effort by the political parties wanting to form the All Progressives Congress, APC, is approaching a milestone. It has got to the level of sharing of interim national offices, with the expected charged outcomes. Its traducers are accusing the APC of being a Muslim-dominated party, and the party through its interim Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, is calling them “purveyors of falsehood”. Governors of the new mega party, APC in Lagos last week Governors of the new mega party, APC in Lagos last week If they overcome the challenges of this level of evolution, the next obstacle will be the selection of presidential candidate for the 2015 election. In the short and medium term, management of the group’s “natural” fault lines – the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP and Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and other sub-group interests – will greatly task the leadership. Power and office sharing in the APC will first satisfy the interests of these sub-groups before considering geopolitical issues, unlike the PDP which goes straight to geopolitical factors in apportioning posts within the party and the Federal Government. The three major merging parties will continue to ensure that their group interests are not swallowed by their rivals, particularly as these groups also represent regional interests. The ACN from the South West led by Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu, will always look out for its regional interests, making sure that, being the largest political group in the merger, it maintains its lion’s shareholding. The emergence of its National Chairman, Alhaji Bisi Akande, as the interim National Chairman hardly comes as a surprise. On the other hand, the CPC with Alhaji Muhammadu Buhari as its leader will also seek to collude with the ANPP to push Arewa interests, particularly its quest to regain power at the centre. If both blocs are able to manage this regional power tussle and nominate a viable and acceptable presidential ticket then the party is well on its way to self-actualisation. By far the most challenging factor in this start-up party is the issue of religion, particularly Christian-Muslim equations. Part of the accusations levelled at the group after its recent office sharing process, is that its leadership is dominated by Muslims. A cursory glance at the top positions reveals that Arewa and Yoruba Muslims clearly call the shots. Apart from the interim National Chairman, Akande, the ANPP’s Alhaji Tijani Tumsah is the National Secretary. The interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed of the ACN; Mallam Nasir el Rufai of the CPC (the Deputy National Secretary); the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Alhaji Nmodu Sheriff who is widely accused of being a sponsor of Boko Haram, are all Muslims. The two National Leaders of the political association, Tinubu and Buhari, are also Muslims. The highest position ceded to a Christian is Deputy National Chairman, which goes to the South East and Rochas Okorocha’s All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. Christians do not have a strong footing in the leadership of the APC, but it hardly has anything to do with deliberate marginalisation. Lai Mohammed tried to play down this factor by disclosing that out of the 35 posts shared out, Muslims have 18, while Christians got 17. This means that the party had gone the extra mile to give the Christians some “affirmative action”. The Muslim domination of the APC owes to the basic regional characters of the political parties forming the merger. The ACN’s home base is the South West, in which Christians and Muslims appear equally distributed by population. The CPC and ANPP are chiefly based in the North West and North East, the core of Arewa. North West is about 90 per cent Muslims, while the North East is about 60 per cent Muslim dominated. The part of the North East where ANPP comes from – Borno and Yobe – is about 80 per cent Muslim-dominated. The APC’s current core catchment areas constitute roughly about 70 per cent Muslims. It is natural that Muslims will dominate the group, for now. Whether Lai Mohammed likes it or not, the religious and regional configuration of the leadership of any political party will be a factor in any national election because religion, ethnicity and region are still very vital and commanding elements of Nigerian politics. What it also means is that the APC has to work very hard to reach out of its core Muslim base and bring in the North Central, South East and South-South, which are the core Christian zones of Nigeria. The North Central is just about evenly divided between Muslims and Christians. The South East and South-South are about 95 per cent populated by Christians and non-Muslims. Given the situation the group finds itself, if it fields a Muslim presidential candidate in 2015 (which appears very likely) religion will become a campaign factor against them. They will be running against a ruling party (PDP) which has no regional or religious deficiency problem because the party is evenly spread all over the country with every group comfortably accommodated. To overcome these problems, apart from the need to embark on a fierce drive to accommodate predominantly Christian zones, the group must create a sound ideological document to persuade voters. Perhaps, that way it can make all the difference. People often say it does not matter whether we have Muslim/Muslim ticket or Christian/Christian ticket. They also say it does not matter where the person comes from provided he or she is a competent and God-fearing leader. Much as this is true, it is also important for a political party or government produced by it to be truly national and broad-based like the PDP. A competent leader who is narrow-minded, like Buhari, will take most of the goodies of his regime to his region as he did during his reign as Head of State and Executive Chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF. He will not give others a sense of belonging. He will implement regional agenda and call it “national agenda” like Northern Muslims who ruled Nigeria did in the past. If Lai Mohammed sees the obvious skewed distribution of the interim APC offices as “equal opportunities across the regions” it shows he believes that is what each of the regions deserves from their group. It is a pointer to things to come if the party comes to power. APC is coming to war with PDP with too many internal weaknesses. - See more at: vanguardngr/2013/07/can-apc-ride-its-internal-storms/#sthash.ASDz7Atr.dpuf
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 09:38:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015