BY YAYA ADEMOLA
RIGHT from its birth, All Progressives Congress (APC) DNA was that of characterless conformity as its configuration was an assemblage of strange bedfellows. In 2014 and run up to 2015 general elections, there was no political party viable enough to wrest power from the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP). Hence, the initiative and an alliance of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and some disgruntled members of Peoples Democratic Party tagged “New PDP” (nPDP) coming together to form APC. With radical and progressive campaigns to turn Nigeria around and make it a better place for mass majority of Nigerians, APC got massive support of the people and defeated the ruling PDP in 2015 general elections.
Electoral reforms and introduction and use of partial electronic voting via Permanent Voters Card for the first time as against usual manual voting that allowed easier and massive rigging and manipulation, especially by incumbent, made a smooth ride to victory by APC. To the mass of the people, APC was seen as a progressive party and an alternative to conservative PDP.
From 2015 till now that APC has been in power, we are all living witnesses to our nasty experiences. While the party and government could lay claim to some remarkable achievements in some areas, threat to security of lives and property has been so overwhelmed that it relegates such achievements to the background. Things have so gone haywire that majority of the people have hurriedly forgotten the hellfire PDP government placed us in before APC emerged to the extent that a recall for return of PDP is being silently drummed.
There is a phrase, “Show me your friends and I will show you your future.” In the recent past, exodus of PDP stalwarts to APC had called for concern. A political party is an organised group of people who share similar ideology with the aim to capture power and implement policies based on its ideology. The out-gone Governor Mai Mala Buni led APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) had continued to boast that it would woo PDP big wigs into the party and increase APC membership to be the biggest in the black continent. This informed why it conducted membership registration/revalidation exercise in 2021 where it claimed to have registered 41 million members. The remaining progressive oxygen in the party started leaking out rapidly the very period it threw its gates open to every “Tom, Dick and Harry.” It so lost guard that people of questionable characters who have no inclination with progressivism became its members. It was this pathetic development that snowballed into its National Convention of 26 March, 2022 at Eagle Square, Abuja.
The soul of a political party largely resides in the Chairman and the Secretary. By consensus arrangement, Senator Abdullahi Adamu and Senator Iyiola Omisore emerged National Chairman and Nation Secretary of APC respectively. In an attempt to confuse the mass of the people who have seen transmutation of APC that they used to think represented their aspiration on the one hand and massaging ego of his principal who was a major sponsor of Senator Iyiola Omisore, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Gboyega Oyetola, Ismail Omipidan said, “…Senator Adamu has spent eight years out of the nine years existence of the ruling party within the party. Two, the National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, had his foundation in the Alliance for Democracy, AD, where he was first elected Osun Deputy Governor. That he left for PDP at some point cannot make him complete PDP through and through.” Omipidan has refused to inform us that the new National Chairman of APC, Abdullahi Adamu, was the pioneer Chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in Plateau State as Nasarawa, his home state, was then still part of the old Plateau State. He forgot to remind us that Adamu was a founding member of the PDP in 1999 and became governor for eight years (1999 – 2007) under PDP platform. Governor Oyetola’s CPS seems not to know that Adamu won an election into the Senate, representing Nasarawa West Senatorial District, in 2007 under the platform of PDP after his two term tenure as Governor.
Omipidan forgot to tell the people that until registration/revalidation exercise of 2021 which gave Iyiola Omisore, among others, lifeline to join APC officially, he was a core PDP man as he contested for Senate under PDP platform in April 2003, representing Osun East Senatorial District, and won. He was re-elected again in 2007 under same PDP platform and won. In 2014, he contested gubernatorial election under PDP but lost to incumbent Governor Rauf Aregbesola. He, in fact, contested in 2018 Osun gubernatorial election under the platform of Social Democratic Party (SDP) as he was muscled out of PDP by the Adeleke dynasty, but lost to Governor Oyetola.
As presently constituted, APC is led by PDP stalwarts. The 26th March Convention is a consummation of its complete transmutation. PDP is, therefore, the ruling party and main opposition party at the same time.
Any change seeker who still sees APC, as presently constituted, as a vehicle for change should better have a change of mind as it is APC – Power!; PDP – Power! To return APC to anything close to a progressive party, either at state or national level, is now a daunting task for the overwhelmed progressive tendencies within it, with conservatives and reactionaries now in the driving seat. While there is no party that is viable enough, at the national level, to wrest power from APC and PDP, a serious party with pro-people manifestoes and credible candidate could spring surprise as the state level.
The electorate should not fold their hands. As we seek the best of driver, mechanic, teacher and doctor, etc, so we must seek best political party and candidate as politicians’ policies and programmes, having received our mandates via votes, will either translate to our peace and prosperity or poverty and penury. Their decisions in government will affect our living and working condition positively or negatively. We cannot and should not, therefore, allow money and sentiments to be determining factors in our choice of party and candidate in future elections especially as we draw close to 16 July, 2022 Governorship election in Osun.
