APC POLITICS: Presidency plays maturity, says Buhari, Tinubu still together

*Wants analysts to get their facts right

By Bashir Adefaka

“This whole exercise, that should lead to massive reform and overhaul of the leadership of the party, as he said in that brilliant speech, was ”to save the APC from the imminent self-destruction. We have to move ahead. We have to take everyone with us and ensure that the party is run in accordance with democratic norms and with consensus. We have to work for the benefit of the country.”

In the usual spirit with which President Muhammadu Buhari has carried the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), on which platform he returned to Nigeria’s highest office in civilian garb in 2015, the Presidency has said there is no acrimony between him and a chieftain of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to suggest that they are not still together.

Political analysts had believed that Tinubu would go down with Adams Oshiomhole for his “indisputable” role in how the latter was using instrumentality of office as APC national chairman to clip the wings of and remove loyalists of President Buhari from relevance in the party system and still pretending to be fighting for the entrenchment of party supremacy and discipline.

That, our investigations revealed, was the very basis that sparked off the crisis that nearly pushed the APC back to opposition under its own time as controller of government.

The governing party came to power in 2015 with 25 states – while PDP had 10 and APGA one – and wider majority in National Assembly under the chairmanship of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.

It began in 2018, under Oshiomhole, to dwindle such that, presently, PDP has comfortably bounced back in a shoulder-to-shoulder strength having seized six states from the APC’s 25 during the 2019 general elections and, only last week, seized another one (Edo State) mainly because of Oshiomhole allegedly backed by Tinubu, who went ahead to declare his suspension by courts as a coup and mocked the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting summoned by court-installed Acting National Chairman, Chief Victor Giadom, for crisis resolution.

Although the former Lagos State governor continued to deny having 2023 ambition, analysts had expected the manner that dropped on Oshiomhole would not spare him due to what they described as his focusing on still far away 2023 politics, while leaving President Buhari alone to governance and still blaming the President for his camp’s self-infected political crisis in the end.

But the Presidency, believed to be playing maturity in a statement sent to The DEFENDER on Saturday, issued by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, revealed that there is no acrimony existent between President Buhari and Tinubu to suggest they are not still together. It added that with the NEC meeting last Thursday, all issues connecting with the crisis were expected to be over.

“The very essence of the requests put to the Emergency National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by President Muhammadu Buhari, which were unanimously approved aim to pull back the party, faced with an existential crisis from the brink of collapse, follow the constitution and take everyone along.

“While this action has been widely accepted with great relief by lovers of democracy and the rank and file of the membership, we are concerned that political vulturism masquerading as “smart analysis” is selling the commentary that this is a Buhari-Tinubu “showdown.” Nothing can be farther from the truth.

“To put the records straight: In the formation of this great party and giving it leadership, President Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who are reckoned as the founding fathers of the APC are both inspired by democratic norms, national interest and not at all by partisan motivations. These are the qualities that have made them move past cynical distractions.

“They are in touch with one another. Their relationship remains as strong as ever and between the two of them, only they know how they manage their enviable relationship.

“Try as hard as they could, the opposition parties have used all their intellectuals and their supporters in the media to break this relationship and have failed. And they won’t.

“For President Buhari who has received much of the cynical commentary, Nigerians know him as someone who will not do anything with bad intentions. Neither will he do anything out of partisan motivations or for himself.

“This whole exercise, that should lead to massive reform and overhaul of the leadership of the party, as he said in that brilliant speech, was ”to save the APC from the imminent self-destruction. We have to move ahead. We have to take everyone with us and ensure that the party is run in accordance with democratic norms and with consensus. We have to work for the benefit of the country.”

“The leaders of the party, who have received two successive massive mandates to govern the country and a majority of the states should be judged by how this exercise turns out in achieving these objectives, not cursed at the mere commencement of the process.”