The polity has been swashed lately with a gale of defection from left , right and center.
This political development cannot be detached from the veiled plan of a splinter group within the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), who called themselves reformed APC.
The rAPC led by Alhaji Buba Galadima, once a trusted ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, has no doubt threw a spanner in the consolidation effort of the recently elected chairman of the Party, Comrade Adams Oshiomole.
From the onset , it was clear that the emergence of the Reformed All Progressive Congress from the enlarged and apparently united front which APC had been all through their convention bode Ill wind for the ruling party.
Will be interesting to note that the same break away faction of Peoples Democratic Party ,nPDP , which departure from the then ruling PDP to APC caused a set back in the fortune of the former ruling party constituted this nAPC block .
The grouse of the Buba Galadima led rApc has been an apparent neglect in the scheme of things by APC, a party they claimed they gave their all to unhorse PDP from power. It was also alleged that members of the splinter group were been harassed ; what exactly was meant by harassment is that EFCC was on the heels of a very good number of them for one financial crime or the other and they want the agency to back off.
Against the run of play, that would mean even if a member of the splinter group had committed a financial infraction or broken any extant law, he should be left alone and be seen to be untouchable lest he gangs up with others of like minds to exit the party.
Except APC wishes to engage in a needless muscle flexing , it must look itself in the mirror and admit that this gale of defection has done its brand a great deal of bad public relations job.
It is of note that overtures were made to the splinter group by the duo of Comrade Adams Oshiomole led APC leadership and President Monammadu Buhari. At different fora appeals were made to the splinter group while the likes of Senate President Bukola Saraki, House of Representatives speaker, Yakubu Dogara, Sokoto state Governor Aminu Tambuwal, Benue state Governor, Samuel Ortom, former Kano.state Governor Rabiu Musa kwakwanso were all met at the Aso Rock by the APC leadership. The parley did not seem to have fallen through.
When Chief Odigie Oyegun held sway as APC national Chairman of the party was when this land mine had been dug. Crisis abound across the state and no genuine conflict resolution mechanism was instituted to douse the tension and resolve the crises. Not even when the National Leader of the party, Mr.Bola Tinubu was given a mandate by the President to or solve these crises did he enjoy the full support of the Oyegun led party structure; this prompted the ex Lagos Governor to pen a frank missive to the President , which confirmed the speculation in the public square that “things have really fallen apart that bad” in APC .
Now that everyone who had threatened the ruling party with defection except one has defected to the opposition party as expected, what is left of the ruling party is a frank inward assessment of their worth, relevance and rating in the polity. APC shouldn’t delude itself thinking as some would like to the defectors are paper weight; no paper weight in a personality who can engineer the exit of fifteen senators in one fell swoop! A political enigma who can ensure the defection of his state Governor, two other senators from same state as well as himself , I dare say , is not in anyway a paper weight politician. The leadership should ask itself how did they arrive this embarrassing juncture withing just three years?
Except APC will embark on self delusion, they should bear in mind that PDP is all out to do anything humanly possible to retrieve the Presidential mandate from them, and all they needed to do to position themselves for the crown is to organize a rancour free Presidential primary where a formidable candidate without baggage can be elected.
While APC has a strong selling point in PMB’s integrity brand, the incessant killing by the herdsmen up north and the middle belt has not helped matter one bit.
If death diminishes humanity, killings by Fulani herdsmen since January till date requires more than armchair approach by a serious government; the masses who have associated with the Muhammadu Buhari brand long to see that day when against the apparent lukewarm solution , some real time culprits are prosecuted and punished for butchering fellow human beings like cows in Benue , Nassarawa and in the core north; if this is not done, even if the killings stopped, the opposition propaganda machinery will use the failure to scapegoat the culprits as FG’s subtle attempt to provide a soft landing for the so called “dreaded Fulani herdsmen” if any group like that ever exist!
It is less than eight months to the 2019 General election. The defectors will square up to the APC led federal government from their new political haven and all manners of propaganda will hold sway in the public space, thus the test of how APC can galvanise itself to public consciousness as a party with the magic wand to rescue the ship of state from falling back into the hands of those who made it susceptible to being capsized in the first instance is well cut out for the party.
We shall observe with keen interest how this battle of wit plays out.
