I have always insisted that the decision of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to liquidate his Action Congress of Nigeria, for the merger that gave birth to the All Progressives Congress, APC, was a misadventure. He ought to have remained a king maker at the regional level. My third eye does not deceive me. Ahead of the 2015 general election, my conviction then was that Jagaban should retain his ACN and go into an alliance with the mega-party that will result from the merger. His structure would have remained untainted, while he would substantially determine the terms of the alliance because he was the most beautiful bride then. The distribution of political offices would have been clearly spelt out and Jagaban would only fill in the gaps as the day progressed. If there emerges a major issue as currently being experienced, this former Lagos State governor would simply retreat to his beloved ACN. But Jagaban got it all wrong. He threw virtually everything he had worked for all his life into the merger and sacrificed his adored ACN.
It is obvious that the APC has fallen
apart, with Tinubu demanding for the resignation of the National
Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, who he claimed had
derailed from the path of progressives. He also wants the Ondo APC
gubernatorial primary cancelled. Jagaban is clearly asking for the
impossible. Oyegun has already aligned with the cabal running the Buhari
government. They have guaranteed Oyegun’s chairmanship as long as he
does their biddings. What the cabal has simply been telling Jagaban all
the while is that he can go to hell. The bitter truth only few people
are courageous to tell Jagaban is that the cabal members don’t trust
him. It is even more interesting to note that some of Tinubu’s cohorts
have jumped ship and teamed up with the cabal. The solid blow from the
likes of Odigie-Oyegun and Muiz Banire over the Ondo issue testifies to
this.
Tinubu had never for once been given his
due respect as deserving of a national leader of the party. The hawks
in the APC would never allow this. They have very little regard for him
and keep running away from the fact that Jagaban almost single-handedly
gave victory to APC in the 2015 Presidential election. Asiwaju could not
even influence the choice of ministers that emerged from his beloved
South-west. The cold war has been on since June, 2015. The
controversial gubernatorial primary in Ondo State exacerbated it. For
Jagaban, Oyegun sabotaged the will of democracy in Ondo State by
overriding the decision of the appeal panel that recommended a fresh
governorship primary following investigations that showed that the
delegates’ list used had been tampered with.
Tinubu further stated that Oyegun’s
action in allegedly subverting the will of the people was not of his
doing, saying that for a man of the age of the national chairman to have
done what he did, then “he must have been under the influence of a
“powerful and sinister arm at work.” Jagaban, who said that the APC was
now under threat of being suffocated by anti-democratic forces
pretending to be progressives, added: “The APC, a party born of the
quest for democratic good governance, is under critical threat by those
who managed to be in the party but never of it.”
Well, Jagaban no longer has the luxury
of simply removing cohorts that have gone astray. This talk about
removing the APC chairman is dead on arrival. For me, Jagaban has to
press a tough restart button. It will be a tough one because the Cabal
will do everything possible to destroy him; but the Jagaban I know looks
good to wriggle out of this. The days ahead will be interesting as
Asiwaju shows his defining colours.
THISDAY
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