By Femi Orebe
Is CECPC’s intent to superintend over who emerges the Presidential candidate of the party that cast in stone they can deliberately conduct an inchoate convention?
If not why the footdragging, the near complete lull, in putting processes in place?
Are we up against some party wreckers in case they cant have their way?
I have written severally on these pages indicating that from its inception, I never had faith in the Governor Buni-led Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) because it arose from a deep seated plot which not only saw off a Chairman of the party together with its entire National Executive Committee but ended up gifting it to a cabal that has since been scheming for the control of whoever emerges the candidate in the 2023 APC Presidential primaries. Fortunately for the party, my personal feelings does not amount to anything. Even after President Muhammadu Buhari had put his feet down, insisting that the party convention must hold in February and the committee had followed up by announcing 26th of the month as the date, snippets of what’s currently going on suggest that the committee is still foot dragging and if it cannot find a way out of the President’s directive, it could, very well, deliberately work towards an inconclusive, or even a failed convention just so the committee would end up conducting the party’s presidential primaries. Just as Senator Orji Uzor Kalu gave this indication last month, Imo state governor, Hope Uzodinma, this past week, on a visit to the Villa, repeated that 26 February, 2022, may, after all not be sacrosanct.
Unfortunately, the CECPC and its controllers would appear to have completely failed to learn from the pitfalls of the Peoples Democratic Party which, groggy with power after 16 years in office, it started to take Nigerians for granted and learnt the hard way. Good enough though, everything shows that the PDP people not only learnt their lessons but know exactly what they are saying when they boast that they would remove APC from power, come 2023.
And why do I say so?
For its convention of 30 – 31,October, 2021, the PDP on Friday 17 September 2021, inaugurated a 279-member National Convention Planning Committee headed by the Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri. The committee, which was inaugurated by the then Acting National Chairman, Chief Yemi Akinwonmi, had as its secretary, the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, and Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, as the Deputy Chairman. The Ag Nationa Chairman appealed to members of the committee to build on the successes recorded during their 2018 Port Harcourt convention which he said was adjudged “the best ever by any political party in Africa” in reply to which governor Fintiri assured that they would not disappoint but surpass in quality. In contradistinction to the PDP, on 19 December, 2021, even as the PDP convention was still the talk of the town, the All Progressives Congress through the Secretary of its Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Senator John Akpanudoedehe, announced that the committee had, “at its 18th regular meeting on Monday, December 20, 2021, deliberated on various national and party matters and resolved, among other things, to set up a sub-committee on budgeting ahead of its February 2022 convention. But as has become its norm, not much has been heard since. Meanwhile, that is by a committee managing a party of over 40 Million members, a ruling party to boot, in far less than two weeks to a make or mar convention, so described because of the many contradictions bedevilling the party, now far worse than before the CECPC came on board. Typical examples are the dispositions of the Aregbesola and the Lai Mohammed factions in Osun and Kwara states, respectively, both of which did not predate the CECPC.
Lest it be assumed that I have anything in mind besides the interest of the party, and to show that I am not the only party member discomfited by the shambolic performance of the CECPC, I crave the indulgence of my readers to quote, at some length, from the public letter which a no less traumatised party member addressed to President Buhari on the same issues.
Let me, however, quickly say that unlike him , I do not believe that Governor Mai Mala Buni is strategising to become the party chairman. On the contrary, I believe that he is in cahoots with persons who are, indeed, more powerful, and influential, than him and whose wishes he cannot not whimsically disdain, or outrightly refuse.
Writing under the caption:APC CONVENTION: CARETAKER OR UNDERTAKER, Salihu Moh. Lukman wrote as follows in his open letter published on 15 February, 2022:
“Your Excellency every committed leader and member of our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), is very apprehensive that with less than two weeks to the scheduled February 26, 2022 National Convention, preparations are very low key, to put it mildly. There is no indication that sub-committees have been set up to drive processes of organising the Convention. Every day, we wake up with different stories about wether governors will be meeting to decide on zoning or they are going to be meeting with Your Excellency. Communication from the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) is very poor and hardly gives confidence that the leadership of the CECPC, especially the Chairman, His Excellency Mai Mala Buni and the Secretary Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe are making any effort to mobilise all leaders, members and Nigerians sympathetic to the party as part of preparations for the National Convention.
Based on the schedule of the Convention, as issued by the CECPC Secretary, Sen. Akpanudoedehe on January 19, 2022, sales of forms to all aspirants is supposed to commence February 14, 2022. As of today, February 15, 2022, forms are not available anywhere, and the excuse from all available sources is that unless zoning of offices to be contested are decided, forms will not be available. Why has the CECPC not concluded zoning by now?
Looking at the schedule of the Convention, the CECPC is expected to publish Convention Sub-Committees on Saturday, February 19, 2022. The question is, have the Sub-Committees been set up, and are they already working? If they have, what are these Sub-Committees and who are the members? If not, when will they be set up? What are the details of these Committees and their mandates, which is to be implemented within less than one week to the Convention?
Your Excellency, the way the CECPC is approaching the organisation of the National Convention gives enough ground to suspect internal sabotage. Is leadership of the CECPC working to ensure that the Convention doesn’t hold on February 26, 2022? Recall that initially, the Convention was scheduled to hold December 28, 2021. Through consultations, it was moved to February 5, 2022. Unfortunately, we found ourselves, as a party, in the embarrassing situation of having to contend with speculation about an alleged ambition of His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni to manipulate his emergence as the substantive National Chairman of the party, which informs his reluctance to organise the National Convention and handover to an elected leadership. Even while consultations were ongoing, leading to the decision to move the Convention to February 26, 2022, there were media speculation that the leadership of the CECPC want the Convention moved to either May or June 2022. Some sponsored media campaigns were openly promoted to canvass for these positions. Although the alleged ambition of His Excellency Mai Mala Buni to emerge as the substantive National Chairman is very difficult to believe, however, with the way the leadership of CECPC under his watch is sluggishly handling the organisation of the National Convention, it gives strong credibility to the speculation.
As things are, the CECPC leadership is using sophisticated strategies to force the hands of party leaders, including blackmail and wildcat promises of electoral opportunity to emerge as candidates of our party for the 2023 elections. This is very unfortunate and must be redressed urgently. Your Excellency, as the moral leader of our party, and one of the leading initiators of the merger negotiations that produced the APC in 2013, you never demanded automatic ticket to emerge as the Presidential candidate of our party. You contested with other four aspirants in the December 10, 2014, in a keenly contested primary election in Lagos and became our Presidential candidate. That was the orientation you provided. Why should the leadership of the CECPC be setting the stage for destroying a veritable democratic tradition, which was one of the important attractions that guaranteed our party the historic victory of the 2015 general elections?Your Excellency, we are faced with a very critical situation, as a party. Sadly, we have some leaders in our party, including the leadership of the CECPC who believe that they can manipulate every situation to impose their choices on the party without going through the necessary processes as established in the constitution of the party. We can’t be a party of change and overlook situations whereby these very leaders continue to take us and the country back to the dark days when party politics is reduced to a circus. This is a very painful reality, which must be urgently redressed.
Your Excellency, beyond manipulating situations in the party to impose their choices on party leaders, members and Nigerians, these few party leaders led by the leadership of the CECPC are very intolerant of criticisms. Consequently, debates are hardly taking place in the party. The leadership of the CECPC has also ensured that meetings are hardly taking place. The only meeting now taking place is the meeting of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF). So long as meetings are not taking place, ability of leaders and members of the party to hold the leadership of the CECPC accountable will be weak. Conscious of the fact that party leaders and members are weak in holding them accountable is about the only reason they have a strong self-belief that they can continue to succeed in manipulating situations in the party to their advantage, including undermining the National Convention of the party.
Many party leaders and members are greatly at pain that, as a party, we are sinking deeper and deeper and in more and problems. A Caretaker Committee, which is expected to open a new democratically vibrant life for the party, facilitate internal party contests, is more and more becoming an Undertaker Committee working to end every democratic life existing in the party by blocking internal party contest. Everything in the party is being reduced to decisions of some party leaders. If the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC was highhanded, intimidating and trampling on the democratic life of party leaders and members, the CECPC led by His Excellency Mai Mala Buni is administering poison, thereby destroying every democratic practice in the party and preparing every stage for the burial rite of APC as a party. This may sound harsh, but it is the sad reality.
Your Excellency will have to take every urgent steps to rescue the party from the reprehensible leadership of the CECPC. The fastest way that can happen is by ensuring that nothing is allowed to prevent the National Convention from holding on February 26, 2022. In addition to ensuring that issues around zoning offices and setting up all the Sub-Committees for the Convention are decided immediately and sales of forms to aspiring candidates should also commence immediately.
I have no doubt that one of the legacies Your Excellency will want to bequeath to this generation of Nigerians, and indeed future generations, is a truly progressive and democratic All Progressives Congress (APC). May Allah (SWT) guide Your Excellency and all APC leaders to put APC back in the direction of providing the needed political leadership to facilitate politics of change in Nigeria. Amen!”
What more can I add, except to say that the way CECPC and its minders rush to the President, they would long have forgotten they were ever in office if they were managers in the private sector.
