Having failed to put its house in order before the National Assembly (NASS) elections held on Tuesday, 9 June, the All Progressive Congress (APC) has become victim of its most dreaded premonition – bitter bickering. The squabble, which engulfed the party in recent weeks, generated so much frenzy that the opposition eventually latched onto it. Many had feared, long before now, that the ruling party’s internal wrangling would in one way or the other afford the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) the avenue to live up to its bidding as the largest opposition party in Africa. Now, the rest is history.

The PDP, which most pundits initially thought had been firmly elbowed to the periphery, has now being buoyed with the much needed impetus of a real opposition party. The APC, perhaps, felt at ease thinking the PDP would turn a blind eye at its shoddiness. It has, however, become crystal clear that the PDP merely played the role of the wily old fox.

Upon conducting a post-mortem of the party’s losses at the NASS elections, this writer realised that the APC itself subconsciously superintended the feud among the party’s stalwarts right from the moment it ditched the zoning policy in the allotment of offices. That indisputably led to the slit which, in turn, caught the party off-guard. One of the practical laws in politics is that you do not change a horse midstream. The PDP in a similar display of naivety forced Bamanga Tukur to resign his position as the party chairman and then recruited Adamu Mu’azu who was quickly described as the game changer after a pyrrhic victory.

The real election eventually surfaced and the party performed woefully at the polls. The same person who was initially praised to high heavens was later tagged the mole behind the party’s dismissal outing. Such is the folly that comes with the capricious substitution of policies and persons. To put it more succinctly, the APC’s defiance towards the same policy that made it a force to reckon with within the mainstream deprived itself of its winning formula at the National Assembly elections.

The party was quite wary of the danger lurking ahead should the warring factions be left to their fate without due reconciliation. In all fairness, the party made an attempt to reconcile these factions albeit at the eleventh hour. As reported, Buhari was to mediate in the ensuing melee before it all went awry. Senator Gbajabiamila’s faction was probably a tad behind because it felt placated by the party’s backing. The faction was willing to enter a truce with Saraki’s faction with the hope that the latter would equally put partisan objectives ahead of personal ambition, but Saraki had an ace up his sleeves. With the way the scenario eventually played itself out, Saraki to some party faithful is a traitor and an unrepentant political agitator. He was one of those whose rebellion buoyed the formation of the new PDP and, by extension, the strengthening of the APC where he is now being perceived as a quisling.

Before the partisan supporter of Africa’s largest opposition party, Saraki couldn’t have been a more appealing Lucifer. His subservient pedigree as a spoiler once haunted the party but is now paying off. The Deputy National Secretary of the PDP, Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo, echoed similar sentiments maintaining that the APC was merely reaping from the same seed it sowed back in 2011.

It should be recalled that in a similar twist, the APC once connived with angry legislators of the PDP and voted Aminu Tambuwwal as the speaker of the House of Representatives ahead of Mrs Mulikat Adeola who was the preferred candidate of the PDP. Tambuwwal later defected. He is currently the incumbent Governor of Sokoto State. In less than a year, the Law of Kama seems to have boomeranged in a more demoralising way and has clawed the APC from different trajectories.

At the lower chamber, Yakubu Dogara merely reaped from the domino effect that would have happened in any other democratic clime. His emergence had an exact set play synonymous with the palace coup that made Tambuwal the speaker four years ago. He must have anticipated the political permutations and thought it wise to discountenance the party’s decision regardless of the consequences.

The most sensational masterstroke was, however, executed by Senator Saraki. The political mafioso of Kwara State showed his mettle as a grand strategist with the clout to dictate the tempo of the political terrain. In Kwara’s political terrain, Saraki is the metaphorical big toe never to be stepped upon. He brought this same ego into the APC and his alliance with the Atikus and Tinubus made the APC the party to beat. These men knew how delicate their individual influences were and did all to manage their egos before the elections. The inevitable test of political strength, or power play, came after the loot was in the kitty, raw and fresh. Lo and behold, the giant APC had been left sprawling like a deer trapped in the headlight of a juggernaut.

Back to the raw deal, Saraki’s perceived sense of betrayal is seen by this writer from an entirely different perspective. His well calculated bipartisanship reminds me of how Afonja, a one-time Aare ona kakanfo (Generalissimo) of Ilorin refused to carry out the order of the Alaafin who told him to wage war against Iwere-Ile, a Yoruba town in modern-day Oyo State. During that era, Ilorin was a mere border town with many Hausa-Fulani immigrants and slaves. The town was a part of the revered Oyo Empire as at then.

An unresolved rivalry brewed between the Alaafin of Oyo and Afonja who remained unbending. He later on formed a military alliance with the Hausa, Nupe and Bornu Muslim slaves living in Ilorin. The leader of the local Fulani population, Salih Janta, also called Shehu Alimi to assist him in waging war against the Oyo Kingdom and this was how Oyo was destroyed. In 1824, Afonja was assassinated and Alimi’s son became the first Emir of the conquered territory. This was how Ilorin lost its independence and became a Fulani-controlled territory. That is why, till date, Ilorin is usually referred to as Banza Bakwai meaning copycat.

It is this writer’s sincere hope that the opposition members who supported Saraki with the intention of ruining the stronghold of the APC do not end up cutting corners to strip  him of his highly exalted position.  The eighth National Assembly has commenced on an explosive note. Now that Saraki has played his ace, what next? Whether Saraki has played his cards well or not, Nigerians may as well say, “Let the intrigues begin, but not to the detriment of the nation!”

OPINION

Kadiri Tolani, CEOAfrica.