BY the time the distressed ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) concludes its state congresses on May 19, there are strong indications it would end up having 61 state chairmen, instead of the usual 37.
The parallel congresses being conducted by factions in about 24 states, starting with last weekend ward congress, would be responsible for the anomaly.
About 24 states, according to a member of the outgoing National Working Committee (NWC), conducted parallel ward congresses, going by the records at the national headquarters and since the crises leading to the duplicated exercise have been resolved, the source explained that the trend might be carried through the exercise.
With the deepening crises in the party nationwide, today’s local government congress is expected to go the way of last weekend’s exercise.
Saturday Tribune learnt that it would be difficult to resolve the factional crises while the exercise is still ongoing, because the NWC would only be sitting after the state congress is concluded to consider the appeal reports from various states and the new lists submitted by the different factions.
Oyo
The congress chairman for Oyo State, Alhaji Musa Halilu-Ahmed on Friday announced the shifting of local government congress from today to tomorrow (Sunday). This is because of local government election holding today in the state.
Lagos
A leader of the Fuad Oki faction in Lagos State confirmed to Saturday Tribune that though the faction would be using the same venues as the Bola Tinubu faction today in order to meet the specifications of the party’s constitution, both factions would be conducting parallel local government congresses and generate different lists of officials.
It was the same story with the ward congress in the state, leading to two ward executive lists submitted to the national headquarters.
Apart from persons that were allegedly attacked during the ward congress in Lagos last weekend, an attempt by the appeal panel to consider grievances brought by Oki faction at the party secretariat on Acme Road, turned bloody on Wednesday.
Saturday Tribune learnt that everyone, including appeal panel members, fled for dear lives when dangerous weapons were being freely used by loyalists of the two factions.
A factional leader told Saturday Tribune there would be no meeting point between the two groups until the national leadership officially intervenes.
While the Tinubu/Oki battle is ongoing in one hand, another major political battle brewing in the state is between the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola and the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, over who is in charge of Surulere politics.
During the ward congress, the Gbajabiamila faction, working with Tinubu, reportedly took control of the area, conceding nothing to the Fashola faction.
A senior member of the Fashola camp believed to have the support of President Muhammadu Buhari told Saturday Tribune that “the humiliating treatment being meted out to the minister would be reversed soon.”
It was learnt that parallel congresses would be conducted in the local government today in the state as in others.
While the Oki faction planned to conduct its congress in the 20 constitutionally-recognised local government areas in the state as it did last weekend, the Tinubu faction is reportedly planning to replicate last weekend’s decision, to have the exercise in all the 57 local government areas and the local council development areas (LCDAs).
State chapters today are also going to pick the three convention delegates from each local government.
In the case of Lagos, the Tinubu faction is planning to revert to the original 20 local governments by getting LCDAs that emerged from LGs to fuse into their parent LGs, to jointly produce the delegates.
In Ikorodu with six local governments and LCDAs, it was learnt that two local government areas would come together to agree on a representative.
The constitutionality of the arrangement, Saturday Tribune learnt, could become a subject of litigation soon.
Katsina
Aside from Lagos, another high-profile crisis is brewing in Katsina, the home-state of President Buhari, the assumed candidate of the ruling party for next year’s presidential election.
Twenty-two stalwarts of the party in the state accused Governor Aminu Masari of illegally constituting a parallel congress committee to conduct the said exercise.
A suit challenging the ward, local government and state congresses with number KTH/31/2018 is now before the Katsina State High Court.
Defendants are the governor; Mustapha Mohammed Inuwa, Muntari Lawal, Alhaji Mukhtar Kado, Ahmed Usman el-Marzuk and Alhaji Yusuf Barmo.
The plaintiffs include A. Sule Saddik, Muntari Abubakar Kogari, Adamu Ibrahim, Nababale Ibrahim, Yusuf Dabo-Choke, Dikko Salihu, Mukhtar Lawal Gwamna, Lurwanu Suleimanu and Bello Salihu Mohammed.
Others are Ubale Saidu, Mohammed Saidu, Isah Mohammed, Umar Salisu, Isyaku Ahmed, Yusuf Abubakar, Lawal Salisu Bomboy, Mamman Awwalu, Ilyasu Surajo, Sani Audu, Maryam Mamman Doro, Mamman Hassan and Bello Auwalu.
In a cover letter to the suit, signed by the lead counsel, I.K. Shadrack, the discontented party stalwarts noted that the alleged illegality being perpetrated in the state chapter of the party would come with huge legal consequences for Buhari and other candidates in the 2019 poll.
The letter, which was addressed to the party’s national chairman, was also sent to Buhari, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Commissioner of Police, Katsina and the state’s Department of State Service.
The letter, titled “Re: Violations of both the APC constitution 2014 and the wards, local government areas and states congresses guidelines, 2018” and dated April 30, 2018 reads in part: “You may wish to note that Katsina State is the state of Mr President and any manipulation of this important exercise will have negative impact on the candidature of all contestants and most especially the president.”
They are asking the court to void the alleged illegal congresses being conducted by the Masari camp, which they claim has Buhari’s backing.
The faceoff in the Rivers State chapter of the party between factions of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and Senator Magnus Abe has remained intractable and seemed inevitably headed for parallel state excos.
Yesterday, violence was witnessed on the premises of the state high court over the disputed congresses.
Findings by Saturday Tribune showed that nearly all the state chapters were involved in one skirmish or the other, although some have not boiled over like others.
All the geopolitical zones are also involved in the intra-party crises.
South West/South South/South East
In the South West, Lagos and Oyo states are most pronounced. Even while Lagos is not settled, the leadership of the party in the zone reportedly vowed to quit the party if the crisis in Oyo State between Governor Abiola Ajimobi and the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, is resolved in favour of the latter by the national leadership, backed by the presidency.
Oyo State is holding its local government election today and local government congress of the party, on Sunday.
Ogun appears peaceful, while Ekiti and Osun are not participating and Ondo’s leadership crisis has been tentatively resolved by the judiciary in favour of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s group.
Apart from Bayelsa and Edo states in the South-South geopolitical zone, the rest is quaking with leadership crises with Cross River, Akwa-Ibom and Delta issues as serious as Rivers’.
Despite controlling just a state in the South-East, the entire zone is a political mess for the ruling party.
The most pronounced crisis is in Imo, where the state governor, Rochas Okorocha, has been shockingly shooed into the minority group by a combination of Abuja and Owerri-based forces within the party.
Apart from lobbying Buhari to reverse his dwindling fortune, the governor has jumped into the forefront of the Adams Oshiomhole project for the national chairmanship of the party.
The coming of the former Edo State governor is expected to help Okorocha out of the pit.
Parallel ward congresses were conducted in Anambra, Enugu, among others.
North
North-Central is relatively quiet for the party except Kogi where Yahaya Bello and James Faleke, backed by late Audu Abubakar’s group, are slugging it out.
Governor Simon Lalong and Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalong are also at it in Plateau State, while what is brewing in Nasarawa, according to an informed insider, is the push by the Christian community thought to be in clear majority for the governorship slot or exit from the ruling party.
In the North-East, Taraba has witnessed violence by factions baying for supremacy, Adamawa is in tatters with parallel ward congresses, while Gombe and Bauchi are also operating on parallel leadership since the congresses began.
The president’s backyard is leading the crisis zone of North-West, trailed by Jigawa, Kebbi and Gombe.
While Sokoto could be considered a peace haven, Zamfara isn’t doing great due to the perennial conflict between the governor, Abdulazeez Yari and Senator Kabiru Marafa representing Zamfara central.
Kano and Kaduna states represent the worst future the party should fear as the intra-party crises in the two states, particularly Kano, could stand in its way to retain the centre next year.
A senior party official who still feels strongly that the one-year extension would have done the party of tenure of the leadership of good, going into the general election, told Saturday Tribune that except something drastic was done, the party, with the much he could see from a very vantage position, would be done for.