After several attempts, occasioned by power play among the contending forces, the All Progressives Congress (APC) held its two-day presidential convention during the week, where former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, emerged as its standard bearer. Tinubu’s victory was resounding as he pummeled all the other 13 aspirants some of whom have boasted to put an end to the political career of the ubiquitous politician.
Nine of the presidential aspirants mounted the podium at Eagles Square to decline the race: eight pledged their support for Tinubu, while one, Felix Nicholas, asked his supporters to support vice-president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. It was an election that left some of the anti-Tinubu forces, walking out of the venue with bruised egos. Sunday Tribune unveils the winners and losers of the APC convention.
Tinubu and his ACN: A fresh air
The former Lagos State governor clinched the ticket after rigorous campaigns, persuasions of hostile power blocs and attendant horse trading. In the last three years, the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, one of the political parties that coalesced to form the APC have suffered several casualties in the APC. One of Tinubu’s man Friday, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was removed as national chairman, while a caretaker committee with Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni took over the party national secretariat in 2020, after an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee of the party held at the Presidential Villa.
Former Nasarawa State governor, Tanko Al Makura, believed to be loyal to the former Lagos State Governor also lost out in the race for the office of national chairman with Abdullahi Adamu, incidentally from the same state assuming control of Buhari House, APC national chairman as consensus candidate.
His emergence was perceived in certain quarters as the death knell to Tinubu’s ambition. The resilient Tinubu however proved cynics wrong. In his acceptance speech, an overwhelmed Tinubu told the gathering of President Muhammadu Buhari and party chieftains that he did not believe that he could win the party ticket.
The APC Northern Governors: Tinubu’s beautiful bride
The Progressive Governors Forum is a forum of governors under the platform of the ruling party under the leadership of Kebbi State governor, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu. Checks revealed that there was no common position on power shift to the south as some of them from the North were in the race for the ticket: Jigawa State Governor, Abubakar Badaru and his Kogi State counterpart, Yahaya Bello.
It was the forum of 14 APC governors that pulled the rug of the feet of the polarised PGF.In a meeting held in Abuja, 13 of the APC northern governors, with exception of Governor Yahaya Bello “strongly recommend to President Muhammadu Buhari that the search for a successor as theAPC’s presidential candidate be limited to our compatriots from the southern states.
For the governors, who not only made the stunning recommendation, but mounted barricades against efforts of the national chairman of the party, Abdullahi Adamu to overturn it, a deal was allegedly struck to produce the running mate to Tinubu. Ahead of next Friday’s deadline for submission of nominated candidates to INEC, it is already taken for granted that one of them would emerge as Tinubu’s running mate.
Rotimi Amaechi: Lonely road in post-Buhari presidency
Despite Tinubu’s assurances of no winner, no vanquished in the battle that produced him as standard bearer, certain forces are taking his pledge with a pinch of salt. One of them is the power bloc led by two term governor of Rivers State and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
He came second in the race having scored 316 to Tinubu’s 1,271.Sunday Tribune checks revealed that the presidential race was the climax of his cold war with Tinubu in the fractured APC.
According to sources, Tinubu instigated the crisis in the Rivers State chapter of the party that pitched Senator Magnus Abe against Rotimi Amaechi. As a result of the protracted crisis and legal tussles, the party was left stranded in the 2019 general elections as the Supreme Court pronounced it ineligible to field candidates.
The battle was carried over to the Buhari Presidential Campaign Council in 2019, as both Amaechi, Director General of the Campaign Council and Tinubu as vice chairman of the campaign worked at cross purposes.
With the exit of Oshiomhole, Tinubu’s efforts to present Hillard Etta as acting national chairman was frustrated by Victor Giadom, an ally of Rotimi Amaechi who had since emerged as national vice Chairman, South South in the present APC National Working Committee.
Will Amaechi survive the war of attrition in APC in a post Buhari Presidency?
Ahmad Lawan: lost power tussle with governors
President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, came fourth in the race, trailing Professor Yemi Osinbajo. He scored 142. Apprehensive party faithful watched with bated breath as the national chairman of the party proclaimed Senator Lawan as consensus candidate, as against the position of governors on power shift to the South. His unilateral adoption by Senator Adamu had since polarised the party national secretariat.
The Senate President’s aspiration was perceived as an extension of the cold war between the APC Governors and the lawmakers.The list is endless. In a gang up against governors, Senator Adamu ninth National Assembly, while working on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2022 had adopted Direct Primary as the sole option open to political parties to elect candidates. The governors won as Buhari declined assent. His last minute efforts to alter the Electoral Act 2022 to pave way for statutory delegates also ran into a ditch.
Sunday Tribune sources revealed that the Northern Senators Forum was in league with Senator Abdullahi Adamu and Ahmed Lawan to upturn the Northern Governors resolution on power shift as they were angry that they were not consulted. The Governors also won.
Abdullahi Adamu: Beginning of the end?
In the unnerving scenario of who gets what on the eve of the convention, the national chairman of the APC left no one in doubt where he belongs: a consensus candidate that will upturn Northern Governors resolution on power shift to the South.
It was a battle that pitched him against other members of his National Working Committee who addressed newsmen and dismissed his proclamation.
Two days to the convention, the APC national chairman had threatened to take disciplinary actions against Bola Tinubu over the latter utterances at Abeokuta, Ogun State capital which he viewed as an insult on the office of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said: “He (Tinubu) went as far as saying how General Muhammadu Buhari went to him, citing instances of even prostrating in tears begging him to endorse him and to support him for the presidency. He claimed Buhari went to him.
“His utterances are very insulting. It’s very unbecoming for a person of that standing to do what he did to the sitting president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the President produced by the votes of the APC. “It is amazing how a fellow APC person would make that kind of comment in that kind of circumstances about the president. We take exception to this. It has shown that he does not show any appreciable level of respect for the office of Mr President.
“Therefore we want to make it public that we are saddened by what we saw in the video, in that reportàge and we condemn it in the strongest of terms. We do hope that he would never say that kind of thing again, particularly of the APC extraction to make such kinds of comments.
“Yes, yesterday we saw some part of a retraction but that effort is not adequate. It is not sincere. It is not in-depth enough. It doesn’t wipe out the impression that that event has left in our minds.”
In his opening remarks at Eagles Square, Adamu had hinted that the best candidate might not win the race
‹The best doesn’t have to get the prize. Some of us have passed through that stage before. Aspirants must be ready to accept the outcome of the process,” he cautioned.
Omisore, Lukman, Argungu, rebels for democracy?
While the APC National Chairman, in league with certain forces in the presidential villa pitched tent with Senate President and adopted him as “consensus candidate,” there were a few others in the APC National Working Committee who aligned with the resolution of the Northern Governors and were poised for a showdown at Buhari House.
Former Osun State deputy governor, Iyiola Omisore, who is the National Secretary of the party; Salihu Lukman, immediate past Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum, who incidentally is the National Vice Chairman, North-West; Isaac Kekemeke, National Vice Chairman, South-West and Suleiman Mohammed Argungu, National Organising Secretary.
Feelers from the party national secretariat revealed that the former Osun State Governor had raised his voice at a meeting of the APC NWC against perceived excesses of Abdullahi Adamu.
Last week, Adamu’s excesses reached a crescendo as Argungu led other members of the national leadership to openly disown the APC national chairman adoption of Ahmad Lawan.
Salihu Lukman and Kekemeke had a week earlier issued a joint statement alerting the party stakeholders of the danger in allowing Senator Adamu to take unilateral decisions on processes leading to the convention without recourse to other members of the NWC.
Party sources told Sunday Tribune that without the rebellion from within, it could have been difficult to stop Adamu and the forces pulling the strings in the Villa.
Kashim Shettima, Nasir El-Rufai: Who dares win
Two-term governor of Borno State and Senator representing Borno Central, Senator Kashim Shettima played a prominent role in ensuring that the North adopted Tinubu. In the uncertain days of the agitation for power shift to the South after Buhari’s two term stewardship, the duo of Senator Shettima and Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai were in the vanguard of raising concern about the threat that a Northern Presidency posed to the stability of the nation.
While Tinubu was being demonized over alleged ill health and not having the physical fitness for the rigour of the office of President, Senator Shettima, a strong member of the Tinubu Campaign team offered the anti -Tinubu flank in the APC and by extension, the nation, a clincher to ponder about: the former Lagos State Governor is not seeking for a bricklayer’s job; Presidency is about contestation of ideas, Shettima argued.
He said: “In 2015, some aspirants with very huge war chest were itching to clinch the ticket of the APC. Like the Rock of Gibraltar, Asiwaju and his progressive team stood solidly behind the candidature of President Muhamadu Buhari.
“We shall have minimal thresholds below which we won’t operate and the irreducible minimum is that after eight years of Presidency in the North, the logic, common sense, equity, justice and fairness demand that power should move to the Southern part of the country and who is better qualified? Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu should be given the choice of first refusal. More than any other person, he has sacrificed more for this democracy, for the APC.
“I’m not asking you to tone down critical assessments of your future leaders, but redirect you to see the bigger picture. We are not here to prepare for the Olympics, but an institution that relies on the superiority of ideas to thrive. Asiwaju’s credentials aren’t only appealing; they are proof of the qualities this country needs to redeem its vast potentials and possibilities.
“We are here to testify to this power of ideas, one that overturned the fortunes of Lagos State and sustained its supremacy as the largest economy in sub Saharan Africa and kept the opposition alive when it was more profitable to sell out.
“Those who seek to make us go low, hope to present the presidency as a brick-laying exercise. But that’s the work of a machine created by an idea, and who else to guide us towards manufacturing the best ideas to redeem this country?
“The conversations we are prepared for aren’t pedestrian obsessions with the mundane, but comparisons of ideas and track records of service to the nation.”
Ahead of Friday deadline for submission of nominated candidates set by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Governor Nasir El-Rufai and Senator Shettima are already being touted as likely running mate to Tinubu.