The All Progressives Congress (APC) Special National Convention to elect the Presidential candidate of the party will hold this week. This is coming after many times of rescheduling. In the Convention, not less than 20 aspirants have indicated interest to contest for the ticket of the party. JOHNCHUKS ONUANYIM looks at some of the issues that may affect the outcome of Convention and emergence of the presidential candidate
On June 1st the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate for the 2023 general election would emerge.
The party, like other parties has been on this preparation in the last two years giving the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari would not be on the ballot again having being on the last lap of his four years, two term. In 2018 and downward the party didn’t bother to prepare much for a presidential special national convention for two reasons.
The first is that no one could have challenged President Buhari and the second, the then National Chairman of APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole would not have that. Therefore the party had a smooth Special National Convention where President Buhari was presented to party members as candidate after the party’s Direct primaries. Unfortunately for 2023 general elections the situation will be different.
The party is going through a thorough situation to produce its presidential candidate. The candidate will emerge through an indirect primary or consensus as the President could not sign the amended Electoral Act that provided for direct primaries.
To show how difficult it would be for the party to choose elect its presidential candidate, 28 aspirants collected the Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms for the plump job according to the APC National Organizing Secretary, Alhaji Suleiman Arungun. Arungun was in charge to sale the presidential and governorship nominations. The party made a whopping N2.8 billion from the sale of the nomination forms, as each aspirants was made to cough out N100 million to purchase the form.
Despite the criticisms on the high cost of the forms, some APC members resigned from the ministerial jobs to purchase the forms. Among them is the former governor of River State, Rotimi Ameachi (resigned as Transportation Minister), former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio (resigned as Niger Delta Affairs Minister), former governor of Abia State, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu (resigned as Science and Technology Minister) and Dr. Emeka Nwajiuba (resigned as Education Minister of State).
Also, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva and the Governor of Central Bank, Mr. Godwin Emefiele would have lost their jobs if President Buhari was a decisive person as they are holding the APC presidential nomination forms.
The duo had flouted the directives of the president and refused to resign after obtaining the nomination forms. The huge number of the APC presidential aspirants has been viewed by many from different perspective. Some said that the President utterances were responsible for this. The President had said on a television interview that he was not going to reveal the name of the person that would succeed him in the party.
A situation some party members said, all the ministers and some governors assuming they were the person. The second reason giving by party members for the huge number of presidential aspirants in the party was the inability of the national leadership of the party to zone and possibly microzone the ticket; and the third reason is that some believe that with the APC Presidential ticket you are a President.
However, the APC has no complaint of the huge number as it was a gain for them. But for whatever has an advantage has a disadvantage. The APC seems to have enjoyed the advantage of having many party members and nonparty members purchasing its forms.
As at the time the former President Goodluck Jonathan and the President of AfDB, Dr. Adesina purchased the nomination forms, it was not on the record of the party that they were members of the party. However, the large number of the presidential aspirants has been considered by some party men as the progressive nature of the APC.
Some have argued that it shows that the APC is the party to beat. According to them, if people were not convinced of the party strength to win they wouldn’t have picked the nomination forms as they did. Contrary, to their belief others have argued that the party has lost direction the reason for the high number of presidential aspirants.
This school of thought also believes that it was failure in APC leadership that made all the ministers and APC governors interested to pick the nomination forms Five incumbent governors: Dave Umahi (Ebonyi State), Ben Ayade (Cross River State), Yahaya Bello (Kogi State), Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti State) and Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa State) picked the nomination forms. Also four cabinet members of the present administration resigned their portfolios to contest the presidential ticket of the APC.
They are Rotimi Ameachi (Transportation), Godswill Akpabio (Niger Delta Affairs), Ogbonnaya Onu (Science and Technology) and Emeka Nwajiuba (Education). Two other Ministers: Chris Ngige (Labour and Productivity) and Timipre Sylva (Petroleum) obtained the forms but refused to resign.
Others who also picked the forms but are not in the executive or legislature are: APC National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, former governor of Zamfara State, Senator Sani Yerima and former Minister of Information, Chief Ikeobasi Mokelu.
The serving Senators who picked the nomination forms are: Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan, Senator Rochas Okorocha and Senator Ibikunle Amosun. Political puritans believe that the high number of APC presidential candidates is the undoing of the party.
According to them, few days to the Special National Convention the party has not been able to agree on who would fly its flag. Some have also argued that the silent of President Muhammadu Buhari to pick his anointed candidate before has also worsen the situation.
Had it been that the President had raised a hand of any of the aspirants the situation would have been a little bit different, a party chieftain said. The chieftain continuing said: “it would not be easy for APC to use four or three days to talk to aspirants to step down.
This could have been done in the last three weeks or one month. “As you can see, the APC governors under the umbrella of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), the presidency and the National Working Committee (NWC) are confused. They seem to be working from the answer to the question.
Ordinarily the governors or the NWC would have reached a decision by now.” The party watching the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on its decision on primaries and special national convention is also inimical to it. PDP is not a ruling party, therefore can take any decision to winning election.
“The APC focus should have been on how to retain power and not how to prevent PDP from winning,” a party source said. The problem between the executive and the legislature in the areas of who owns or control more delegates could be said to have affected the APC.
APC has the majority in the National Assembly and any amendment made on the Electoral Act should have been one that would affect the party positively. But it seems that the last amendment on the Electoral Act is not in favour of the party, the reason the President has refused to sign.
Converging at the Eagle Square on this week with 2,340 delegates to elect its Presidential candidate, APC might run into murky waters.
The winner might not be what the party might expect, since such winner might not be able to win election for the party. The issue of Muslim/Muslim ticket is of a concern to the party and the issue of a southern sresidential candidate and a Muslim Vice Presidential candidate is also a problem.
“The national leadership of the party is working hard, though very late to avert a situation it would lose election,” the party source said. The position of the party not wanting to lose election is evident with the speeches of its National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
Adamu had emphatically stated that the party should not lose any election. His recent emphasis on that was at inauguration of the Ekiti State governorship campaign council. In fact the chairman said the patting package the party owes President Buhari is to win elections.
For APC to get it right and conduct a rancorous free National Convention and elect or nominate a presidential candidate that might win election for it the party must come clean and work for 24 hours to the convention date