The fortunes of the All Nigeria People's Party appears to be dwindling, even under the new leadership of Dr Ogbonaya Onu. Regional Editor (News), Olawale Rasheed, X-rays the troubles bedevilling the partyTHE All Nigeria People's Party(ANPP) was originally a leadingopposition party within few metres away from the Presidency. From a number two political party, the party is today a dying symbolism of its old self, a self-denying estranged wife of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party [PDP].From 1999 to date, the party underwent a tragic reversal of fortune from the control of eight states to only three by now. In the beginning, the North-West was almost equally shared between the PDP and the ANPP. It was only in the North-East that the party managed to retain its two original states from 1999 to date.Nationally, the party has been reduced to an appendage of the ruling party. In the three northern zones, even the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) is gradually overtaking it in terms of presence. In reality, Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) is everywhere in the North, second only to the PDP. In the South-West, the ANPP has long gone into oblivion. In the South-East and South-South, the fortune of the party is nothing but unimpressive.Many analysts are quick to trace the misfortunes of the party to its romance with the ruling party soon after the 1999 general election. The parley with the Obasanjo presidency by some ANPP governors as a way of personal survival was said to have strangulated the party and transformed it into a dual-faced platform, one for the ruling party and the other for the integrity of the party.For those who followed the many conventions of the party from 1999 to 2007, the ANPP was partly destroyed by fifth columnists, external agents with a mandate to enforce factionalisation in return for protection from federal harassments, re-election during the 2003 general election and support from federal authorities. Under the strong arm tactics of the Obasanjo administration, the ANPP lost its colour and increasingly, the party regularly rose against itself on issues as mundane as whether to support federal policies or not.The worst era for the party came after the 2007 general election when its national chairman, the late Chief Ume Ezeoke, entered into the infamous national unity government with the ruling party, with his son getting a juicy presidency appointment and two federal ministers for the party. It was the lowest level the party ever sunk into in its many years of existence. The late former Speaker of the House of Representatives only repeated his support for national unity as he did in the Second Republic when he strongly supported the unity government between the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the National Peoples Party (NPP). That repeat of history however proved fatal for the party, as it led to the birth of the CPC.The birth of the CPC is a serious erosion of the integrity of the ANPP, as it was an external implosion of the rivalry between pro-PDP and pro-ANPP factions within the party. The party thus went into the 2011 elections in disarray, with its leadership unsure of how to confront its allies at the polls. The dilemma was, what do you tell the electorate when your party was serving in the PDP government that it was supposed to contest against'Interestingly, the advances the party made in some states were due to the personal clout of leaders in the affected areas. Governor Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe State was positively adjudged, even by his foes, as having performed to expectations after taking the reins of governance after the death of the former governor, Senator Mamman Ali. Hence, he routed the PDP badly and his victory cannot be attributed to the strength of the party but to the governor's record of performance. The same situation obtained in Borno State where, even after the assassination of its standard-bearer, the party, through its strongman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, still retained the state.For the party's victory in Zamfara State, the personal efforts of the former state governor, Senator Sanni Yerima, were widely ascribed as the architect of the party's victory. And in Kano where the party would have had a strong showing due to the person of former Governor Ibrahim Shakarau, infighting and electoral errors cost the party dearly.In reality, the new chairman of the party, Dr Ogbonaya Onu, took over an ANPP that was a shadow of its old self. By the time he was elected, the party had been fully infiltrated by agents of the ruling party, such that it was at times difficult to separate ANPP members from PDP members. In some strange cases, federal authorities even helped the ANPP against the local chapter of the party, all in the spirit of unity government.Now that the party has shrunk into the third or fourth position, its leadership is trying to pick the pieces, dissociating it from some very nasty policies of the former chairman. First, it refused to participate in the unity government. Second, it is reasserting its independence from the ruling party, focussing on the expected roles of an opposition party. Third, the restructuring of the party is the most ambitious.Worried by its abysmal performance in the 2011 general election and its dwindling membership, the party held an extra-ordinary National Executive Council (NEC) meeting where it set up a five-man committee to reorganise the party ahead of the 2015 general election. The committee members are former governor of Kano State and the party's presidential candidate, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau; his Borno State counterpart, Senator Ali Modu Sherriff; Yobe State governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima and his Zamfara State counterpart, Abdullazeez AbubakarYari.Its chairman, Dr Onu, speaking on the occasion, said what happened in the past would not happen again in the 2015 general election, hence the need to set up committees that would strengthen the party before the 2015 elections. Interestingly, the trio of Shekarau, Sherriff and Gaidam were absent at the meeting.'The challenge we face is that we all must keep hope alive for the sake of democracy; for the sake of our children, our wives, our husbands, our mothers, our fathers, who are disturbed about how things have gone wrong in our fatherland. We must resolve to work hard so that Nigerians can seize the opportunity which we offer to rekindle faith in a better tomorrow. We must close ranks, remain strong and united in the pursuit of offering Nigerians a credible alternative that can reduce their frustrations of yesterday and restore their faith in better tomorrow of robust promise and fulfilled dreams.'Fellow party men and women, the 2011 general election is over. Nigerians have spoken, we have heard them. What message did they give to us' The message is for us to work harder. We shall not desert you! This is a solemn message from those who believe in us. It is a message of faith. It is a message of great expectation. Above all, it is a message that tells us loud and clear: be prepared.'I therefore urge you to rededicate yourselves to the noble dreams of our founding fathers. We were fashioned as a political party that will win elections at all levels of government and provide selfless and visionary service to Nigerians. We were not conceived as a perpetual opposition political party. No! We must work harder, have faith in ourselves, believe in our party and resolve to toil, night and day, until we form government at all levels and produce the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2015,'' Onu said in an apparent clarion call to reawaken the party from the death bed.Two months after the inauguration of the committee, many are convinced that the restructuring agenda is not likely to result in any positive or radical shift in the fortunes of the party unless those architects of collaboration with federal authorities are relegated to the background within the party. The problem is that these chieftains cannot be relegated for they are rich, influential and they command strategic following within the party.What is more, the committee chairman, Yari, is battling a tribunal tussle with the PDP. His survival on the seat is reportedly under threat and he may for some time now, have no space for party assignment. If the man is to survive, he may have to play a bit of the old politics of hobnobbing with the federal side, a situation that may effectively sound the death knell of the restructuring committee, whose other members, save the former Kano governor, are fingered as pro-federal bloc within the party.For Dr Onu, this is, therefore, not the best of times. The gentleman that he is, the Ebonyi politician is at the mercy of party chiefs who are uninterested in his idealism of party revival. The other beaming hope may be the positive development at the gubernatorial tribunal in Ebonyi, the home state of the party chairman. If for whatever reason, the ANPP should win at the tribunal, then the chairman may have a support base to push his ideas to revive the party.For now, the ANPP is in a very poor state. When leading opposition parties and politicians were acknowledged recently, ANPP or any of its chieftains was conspicuously absent. The troubled ANPP is a lesson for opposition parties in how not to romance with the ruling party.
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