It is pertinent to sound a call to action to the The All Progressives Congress (APC) before the actions of a few become the parameters by which Nigerians judge the party.
Nigeria’s Governing Party needs to get her house back in order, and quickly. Before the 2015 Presidential Elections she was a disciplined army, marshaling with military precision nationwide and executing strategy with a unity of purpose that was matchless. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the former Ruling Party, was a sitting duck before the APC’s very mobile, hard-hitting campaigns and was totally outclassed in every theatre. It is no mean feat to wrest power from a ruling party in Africa but the APC did it at first try. Some opposition parties on the continent have been trying for 3-4 decades.
Now in Government, it appears success has compromised discipline, and party cohesion appears to be the first victim. Watchers of current affairs have noticed a troubling penchant for specific party bigwigs to appear above the law, and act in brazen violation of party unity, without the least repercussion from any quarter, never mind internal party control systems. The most glaring example of this insidious canker is to be found in Kogi State where forces allied to one of the most prominent power blocs in the APC are hellbent on unseating Governor Yahaya Bello even if it means losing the state to the PDP.
Twice now successive judicial hierarchies, namely the Kogi State Gubernatorial Elections Petitions Tribunal and the nation’s Court of Appeal, have affirmed Governor Bello’s election in very clear terms, and twice now members of his own party led by James Abiodun Faleke have led the charge to disavow it. They have now appealed to the Supreme Court before whom they have again rehashed their previously and twice-dismissed claims. Claims which can be summarized thus: If Yahaya Bello remains Governor in Kogi, then the APC as a party, along with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the nation’s Judiciary, have perverted justice.
All the same, it is not the Kogi opposition’s recourse to the Judiciary that is so irksome. Au contraire, that aspect of their wahala is commendable. The judicial option is always best when free men dispute for their rights. What is dangerous, and the conduct which APC National has failed to curb is the sponsored false portrayal, in dozens of media platforms, of the APC Administration in Kogi State as a rampantly rapacious looting machine. The preponderance, monopoly actually, of these libelous publications in the Lagos Axis of the Nigerian Press practically geo-locates their source, and sponsors.
This campaign of malice and calumny, while directly targeted at de-branding the current occupant of Lugard House, Kogi’s Government House, is having the (intended?) effect of slowly, but steadily, de-marketing the APC at all levels. Initially, these adverse publications and media appearances were minor irritations which left a bad taste in the mouth of anyone abreast of the facts. In recent times though, they have mushroomed into a serious image problem for the APC as a whole.
Anyone who looks at the figures being bandied about and approaches the available evidence with frankness will not require a soothsayer to deduce the truth. Of course, there is no such looting going on in Kogi State. The allegations are figments of the fevered imaginations of their proprietors. In Kogi the New Direction Agenda is firmly on course, rebuilding the battered state it inherited and renewing the shattered psyche of her people. Nonetheless, the APC hierarchy must realize that image is crucial currency in governance and perception is key to image.
What these enemies within have failed to grasp is that in their bid to hurt Yahaya Bello with their lies, they are hurting the whole Governing Party.
The message Nigerians are getting from these false publications, if one goes by the trending discourses on social media, is that these allegations must be true if they are coming from such influential party insiders. And what’s more, if they are true of the APC in Kogi, then they must be true of the APC everywhere. It is this perception problem, and its allied image implications for the APC in general that necessitates an urgent and decisive intervention by party leaders.
Kogi State is not the first where members of the same party struggle in court over who the rightful occupant of a post which has been won at the polls should be. Abia State is embroiled in a similar tussle at the moment but parties therein have limited their hostilities to the courtroom, and to the issues. They have not turned it into a referendum on the capacity of their party to rule that state. Surely the APC can do better and the lowest hanging fruit right now is to rein in her members who engage in these anti-party activities in Kogi.
Governor Yahaya Bello’s New Direction Agenda in Kogi State is resonating with the people. The tangible efforts of the Administration at addressing the developmental challenges confronting the state are well received. When the Governor visited Okene days after his election and was received by a mammoth crowd, some uncharitably averred it was because he hails from the town. When he visited Ankpa last week for a private engagement and was received by a mammoth crowd celebrating his result-based, purposeful governance, detractors were struck speechless.
Kogi State is poised to become leading light among the APC states under Yahaya Bello, but she needs the party machinery at all levels to prevent enemies within from strewing obstacles along the path. This is not to say that such enemies can stop the New Direction Agenda from actualization. It is to say that proactive action by the party to contain them will amount to much less obstacles to surmount, and better speed in succeeding. Failure to do this could well amount to a chink in the armour and the beginning of an Achilles’ Heel. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Signed:
Barr. Segun Senibi (Kogi West)
Barr. Adeiza Ojo (Kogi Central)
Barr. Idakwo Andrew (Kogi East)
FOR: Kogi Concerned Lawyers for Democracy (KCLD)
