Michael Orodare: APC and the burden of a mega-party (Y! Politico)

by Michael Orodare

APC-Logo1

Pardon my digression, the APC crises is no longer looming, it’s now a big threat to the less than a-year-old marriage of strange bed fellows, which might result in a shipwreck as being predicted by the truly politically inclined.

On Boxing Day, while signing out of this column for the year 2013, I opined that the year 2014 will be a decisive year for Nigeria and buttressed this by highlighting some of the major political events to watch out for in 2014.

One of the events I stated then, is the All Progressive Congress (APC) national convention, which I posited might just be a replication of what played out at the August 31st 2013 PDP mini-convention, where things fell apart.

The convention and state congresses are yet to hold and things have started falling apart truly in the APC. Now that the ruling PDP has started experiencing some iota of peace with the resignation of its embattled National Chairman, Bamanga Tukur, the much predicted APC woes have started brewing up in Ogun, Ondo, Kwara, Kano, Borno, Benue, Sokoto to mention but few, just like I also pointed out in the Boxing Day article that “APC are good crisis and media managers than the ruling PDP, where all their dirty linens are washed in the public. So when there is an internal crisis in the APC, it may never be a subject of discussion in the public.”

Trust their army of social media activists who will never see anything worth demonizing in a broad day light attack on Senator, House of Representatives members at a political gathering in Ogun state by members of the same party, but are always swift in their 140-character feats of rhetoric to berate the Presidency whenever Mrs Ibim Sementari issues a press release.

Yes, I am an LP apologist, yet I do not portray myself as an activist, that is why I am not like one of those who deceive their gullible followers with their 140-character feats of rhetoric, but seek patronage from politicians and chide you when you’re not on their side. A topic for another day.

Pardon my digression, the APC crises is no longer looming, it’s now a big threat to the less than a-year-old marriage of strange bed fellows, which might result in a shipwreck as being predicted by the truly politically inclined.

In Ondo state, APC now boasts of three factions, with each laying claim to the leadership of the party in the state. In the case of Ogun, one of the most absurd of them all, members of different factions, one loyal to the state governor and the other loyal to a former governor now send thugs after their opponents in the same party, and there seem to be no end in sight to this raging war.

In Kwara, the war is still limited to the pages of newspaper, a faction in the state chapter of the party has vowed not to reckon with defected Senator Bukola Saraki and Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed as their leaders in the state. The faction has also told us to watch out for the emergence of a new-APC, to be championed by the likes of General Mohammed Buba Marwa, Attahiru Bafarawa, Ibrahim Shekarau and Dele Belgore. This contunually brings up So many interesting dramas to watch in the APC as internal crises wait to rip apart the less than one year marriage.

In the build-up to the Ondo governorship election in 2012, I could remember reading in the defunct ACN political tabloid, a report like “5000 LP members decamp to ACN in Mimiko’s ward”, a propaganda that brings out the best of laughter in me, and on the day of the election we didn’t see on the result sheet, the votes of the said “5000” and many others who were said to have dumped their party for the defunct ACN.

We are still expecting more of this propaganda in this year, even at local government wards where the entire populace is not up to 2000, they’ll report in their political journal that 5000 has decamped to their party.

Now the APC is having a bite of what it takes to be a National party and not a regional party they were before their fusion into APC. Whether the APC will survive the tsunami called internal crises which tears big parties apart, like the PDP which is now getting over its own, only time will tell. On the whole, I think this is also a good development for our growing democracy.

 

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Michael Olanrewaju Orodare has worked in the Office of the Chief Press Secretary to the Ondo State Governor as a Media Assistant. He has garnered experience writing in the The Nation Newspaper working with the paper’s Sunday Desk. He leans towards the Labour Party. He blogs at www.michaelorodare.blogspot.com and tweets from @MichaelOrodare

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

One comment

  1. “#APC as party only exist on pages of newspaper not on d ground like d other political parties,making it very difficult for it b taken seriously.D party frm date of registration till date has no registered members except party leaders good in making unguided,inflamatory statements.We waitng to witness d #Shipreck as prophesyed by political watchers soonest it’wl come to pass”.

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