Dismantling the Bermuda Triangle in APC

President Muhammadu Buhari, while calling for constitutionality on tenure extension of executive members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), had stated that it is better to follow strictly, the dictates of the party and national constitutions, rather than put APC and its activities at grave risk.

I can feel the effort of Mr. President to reconcile the aggrieved members of the ruling party materialising. That is because he has chosen the correct, though the tough way, to institute internal democracy in the party by allowing the constitution to guide the members and their conducts. This could be the best thing that will be happening in Nigeria since her return to democracy.

I think that no party, especially the big ones, has relied entirely on the national constitution to resolve its intraparty squabbles, not to talk of the party’s constitution written by themselves. With this position of the President to strictly uphold the constitution of Nigeria and that of the APC in the face of all oddities amongst the APC members, the Bermuda Triangle of the party: the President bloc, the Saraki bloc and the Oyegun bloc could be dismantled and united.

• APC crisis: We’ll defeat ghost hovering over our heads —Oyegun

There could also be a hidden bloc; all will be soothed and positioned for a better contest against the opposition in 2019. It is quite normal in any society that people follow interests. That is why in politics especially, there is no permanent friend or foe. And there is hardly any clean politics just like there is hardly any saint in politics. However, there is always the order of omission, commission and limitation.

Furthermore, with this position of the President, if actually it works throughout the electioneering and election period, it will be hard for the ruling party to lose the forthcoming elections. If the APC strictly follows its constitution, conducts free primaries at the local and national conventions, millions of Nigerians, peradventure more than in 2015, will embrace them wholeheartedly for continuity. Internal democracy has been the problem of the past.

That was often the key factor to failure after elections. When things are done wrong from the onset; that is if the foundation is weak, assuredly, all that follows will be wrong.

APC lawmakers, on their own part, argued that the President had saved the party from an “impending doom”. They insisted that under a constitutional democracy, APC must lead by example in applying the tenets of democracy in all its affairs. They want the APC to look at it dispassionately because there is no room for frivolities in such very dire situation which has its clear consequences.

 Muhammad Ajah

 Abuja.