At both state and national levels, there are obvious confirmations that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has deliberately murdered sleep since last month with the magnitude of controversies trailing the conduct of its primaries to elect candidates for next year’s general elections.
The ominous signs are already glaringly visible. Apart from the facade and cosmetic ceremonial presentation of the certificate of return to President Bola Tinubu and the automatic re-election tickets to almost all the first-tenure governors, every other action concerning the outcome of the primaries has depressed into an upsetting pause mode.
The anomie within the party has given rise to discomforting thick clouds of uncertainty, an anxious and endless wait by political actors and their supporters, an arrogant posture, and the reluctant and blunt refusal of the confirming authorities to act decisively.
Equally part of the signals for the looming crisis threatening to engulf the ruling party are the cold war between some state governors and certain elements in the presidency, the unending protests, and many other troubling realities on the ground at both the national headquarters and state chapters of the embattled party.
From all indications, the APC is apparently sitting on a keg of gunpowder. The bone of contention is the deliberate delay in the release of the list of candidates that emerged victorious after its primaries and the measures on the best way to pacify aggrieved aspirants, which have been schemed out almost one month after the exercise.
The wait has transformed from hope to despair, happiness to anger, trust to mistrust, dialogue to protest, and certainty to uncertainty, yet the confirming authorities have looked insensitively unruffled and unyielding to the agonising dispositions of the aspirants.
To worsen the plight of aspirants who have agonisingly waited since the primary elections, the uncomplimentary utterances by the eggheads of the party’s national leadership, particularly the National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda, and the National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Basiru, have certainly exacerbated their anxieties and grievances.
The party’s chief scribe, Senator Basiru, shocked many aspirants, party members, and political watchers with his undemocratic remarks in a trending video, alluding that some aspirants only wasted their time and resources participating in the primaries when in reality the ruling party does not believe in democratic process.
Speaking largely in Yoruba in the video footage, Senator Basiru stated explicitly that the final decision of who ultimately flies the APC’s flag as candidate in the forthcoming elections will be determined by the National Working Committee (NWC). He added in a deriding manner that primaries are just for formalities, warning those complaining about the outcome of the exercise that irrespective of who was declared winner, the party’s leadership still reserves the power to endorse candidates.
“As for those who will get the senatorial seats and even the presidency, we are the ones who will nominate and endorse them. If you say a candidate didn’t win, we are still the ones who will endorse and sign them. They are just playing. We don’t conduct primaries in our party; we choose whoever we want to choose. Even when we conduct primaries, it is just eye service because we all know you don’t become a party candidate through primaries,” Basiru stated in the video.
Interestingly, despite the deluge of outraged online comments and reactions that trailed his remarks, the party’s leadership unrepentantly cared less whether their utterances could worsen the party’s internal democracy or the credibility of the candidate selection process.
In a show of the height of insensitivity, APC national chairman Yilwatda, who has repeatedly stirred up a hornet’s nest with unguarded utterances, took it to the zenith whilst cautioning protesters at the party’s national secretariat last week, saying that their action clearly contravened the rules of engagement for the conduct of party primaries.
He specifically reminded them of the illegality of anybody who did not participate in the party primary engaging in any form of protest over the outcome of the exercise, explaining that the most viable option left for aggrieved aspirants, according to the amended Electoral Act, is to petition the party’s Primary Elections Appeal Committee to review their cases.
While crashing the hopes of the aggrieved aspirants further, Yilwatda boldly warned that even as they can explore such an option, the duration window for filing a petition against the outcome of primaries, in line with the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2027 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), elapsed since 30 May.
“Legally, only individuals who actually participated as an aspirant in the internal elections have the locus standi to dispute the outcomes,” he said whilst confronting the protesters, adding: “Are you aware that legally, based on the Electoral Act, it is only the aspirants that are supposed to lodge complaints and challenge the process of the election? In simple terms, they are the ones that can challenge the process of the election.”
The APC chairman advised them to direct their principals to utilise the party’s established internal conflict resolution mechanisms, but cautioned that any valid grievance must strictly meet the statutory timelines, emphasising: “I urge you to advise the aspirants to go and write a petition that they were unjustly treated. And that was supposed to be submitted to the Appeal Committee.”
“We will forward your petition to the legal unit to treat them if they are amongst those people who submitted within the timeline, because we have to be law-abiding as a party,” he quipped, almost foreclosing any hope for the aggrieved aspirants.
The comments from the APC’s boss incontrovertibly confirmed that things have disappointingly fallen apart in the ruling party since the conduct of the primaries, making the centre very difficult to hold any longer.
The arrogant posture of the party’s leadership is a clear case of their refusal to learn from history. Nomination of candidates and primary election discrepancies, with far-reaching implications, was the trap which consumed predecessors like Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Abdullahi Adamu after the 2019 and 2023 general elections, respectively.
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