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Oshiomhole and his enemies fight on relentlessly

Published by The Nation on Sat, 29 Feb 2020


By UnderTowThe next election cycle is closer than many top All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders think. It is on the surface about three years away; but in reality, given what the party needs to do and put in place, they barely have two years. Yet, the party apparatchiks have fought like Kilkenny cats, and oblivious of the dangers they face should the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) become truly resurgent, they seem unable to grasp that they face an existential threat. There are greater issues to fight over, such as their ideological standing and platform, or salient national issues that need their attention and clarification, but they have chosen to fight one another, brutally, bloodily and obscenely. Alas, the nation has become their vast and curious spectators.Their party chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, has become their lightning rod. Having bifurcated the party by his provocative opinions and administrative resolve, members and leaders of the APC have ranged themselves into two platoons or brigades: one with him, if not necessarily for him, and the other against him. He is fortunate that his ideas and person, not to say his style, do not leave anyone indifferent to him. To that extent, his victory, or that of his enemies, would probably leave the party more wholesome, more compact, and truly energised to fight the next election cycle. This column thrice focused on him and the battles confronting him in the APC. Quite clearly, the war has not ended. It has not ended because one side has not been defeated. However, it does not seem like the war will continue for much longer, probably not later than this year or early next year.Unfortunately for the ruling party, the war between Mr Oshiomhole and his enemies is not one of ideology, administration, style or even any substance properly so called. It is a war over 2023, the year of the next election cycle culmination, a war in which one side to the conflict has presumed the party chairman to have taken sides. Armed with that summation, the aggrieved side has sworn to dethrone the chairman before 2023, and has increasingly fought more confidently, openly and without gloves, regardless of whose ox is gored. A significant percentage of the APC Governors Forum is against him, many of them embittered by the pre-election intraparty politics of 2019, and the fear of what role he might yet play in subsequent governorship elections. Another group is against him for the way he made them lose face when he thwarted their succession politics and plots in 2019.Yet another group is taking on him after coalescing around diverse objectives, some of those reasons so far-flung that it is hard to judge their coherence. What is significant is that Mr Oshimoholes enemies will be relentless, unsparing and fanatical about dethroning him. They have summed up his ideas, person and style, and have concluded that it is fruitless pacifying him or reaching some accommodation with him. They think he is so unpredictable that leaving him in office as chairman of the party would do a lot of damage to their present and future interests. What is more, the chairmans enemies are spread all over the countrys expedient geopolitical zones, though some are more truculent in their opposition than others.Mr Oshiomhole has tried to pacify some of his enemies by composing dithyrambs in their honour, but they have remained unyielding. He has also tried to browbeat some of them, but they have become even fiercer. Yet he has very solid support in the party, particularly among those he helped to rise into prominence either in the party hierarchy or in past elections. But neither his new converts nor himself, nor yet his backers can tell how long or how far he can keep his enemies at bay.He is optimistic, and so are his main backers; but it is not clear whether optimism alone can swing the battle. However, he and his backers hope that in the final analysis, the crucial veto power of the presidency would either not be cast on time and decisively, or if cast, that it would be cast in his favour. Overall, they hope for a third option: that the presidential veto would, as it has become customarily and idiosyncratically aloof, not be cast at all.As this column noted a few weeks ago, the Edo and Ondo governorship polls in September and October will go a long way in determining the fate of Mr Oshiomhole. He is unlikely to have much headache in Ondo, despite the ongoing schisms in the party and the initial feelings that the governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, might be averse to his chairmanship. Party leaders are fairly confident that the situation in Ondo has not deteriorated beyond remedy. They think they can reconcile the combatants and coax the governor to make concessions.But in Edo, the jousting in that politically febrile state has probably gone beyond the point of no return, given the undiplomatic and somewhat coarse manner the governor, Godwin Obaseki, has dug his heels in and thrown barbs at Mr Oshiomhole. The state, even though one-sidedly APC, has functioned without a legislature for many years on account of the curious political arithmetic projected by the governor, not to say his quaint and unusual definition of democracy. The APC chairman is more politically savvy than Mr Obaseki; should he find the formulae to thwart Mr Obaseki and still go on to win Edo for his party, he will become both indomitable and invincible going forward to 2023.But Mr Oshiomhole is being fought from the APC Governors Forum, as emblematised by the groups director general, Salihu Lukeman, who penned a caustic message against the chairman to the Bisi Akande-led reconciliation committee. And he is being fought from Edo State, as epitomised by Mr Obasekis intransigent opposition.Then, there are stragglers and ambitious politicians in the wider APC who have the capacity to do tremendous damage to Mr Oshiomhole. So far, the opposition to the APC chairman, though sever and acerbic, has been largely desultory. Should they manage to coalesce for one reason or the other in the coming months, particularly after the September and October governorship polls, Mr Oshiomhole will have to reassess his chances and contemplate his future. He is not yet encompassed by enemies, but there is nothing to suggest his enemies are not trying to outflank him.The APC chairman is himself a stout-hearted and combative politician. Even though many of the battles he has fought and won were needless, considering that they are the products of unforced errors and unnecessary boisterousness, he possesses an effervescence that endears him to party rank and file.He is powerless to find a clean and clear solution to the intraparty conflicts that have dogged the APC from inception, for many of the problems are foundational, but he must slowly begin to realise that there must be an end to conflict in the party if it is to regain its composure and present a good fight in 2023. Chief Akande has been saddled with the task of finding a solution to the conflicts that have ravaged the party, but though he is a man of very even temper and is avuncular to boot, it is doubtful whether even he can find the magic wand to quieten the raging storms within the party.The APC is fortunate to have an even more fractious PDP to contend with, not only this year in the Edo and Ondo polls, but in the near future in other polls and in 2023. Had the PDP been better led than it is and more inspired with the right leaders and philosophies, perhaps the fear of diminution or even extinction might have persuaded the ruling party to still their own storms. Indeed, in a way, the storms in the APC are a disincentive to the PDP, and vice versa.Since there is no third force to give the two leading parties a run for their money, both the APC and PDP can afford to be fairly complacent. Nigerian politics has become increasingly conservative; and so the chances of a radical resolution of the countrys political ferment are not very high. A third force does not, therefore, look imminent. Indeed, given the revolutionary pressures observed in the past one decade or so, the chances of an all-out revolt seems more likely than the radical but measured resolution of the national paralysis by a third force.Mr Oshiomhole must be in a quandary at the moment. He knows his position is not terribly threatened, but he also fears that he does not have much time left. He has tried being on the offensive without much success, considering his own failings and weaknesses; but he has done just enough on the defensive without actually vanquishing his enemies.He will hope that fortune will smile on him, and his enemies will make a mortal mistake from which they cannot recover. If he drives home his advantage at that point, if he becomes more diplomatic and less antagonistic, he might get the breather he has pined for since assuming office. How long that breather will last is, however, anybodys guess.
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