More than 40 million eligible voters on the roll of a political party is no mean feat…and can only come by a dint of hard work.
For this, All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party at the federal level and most of the federation, prides itself as Africa’s largest political movement. That is a priceless asset any party could flaunt and shout out from the rooftop. It is to be guarded jealously.
Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, who chaired the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee released this chest beating figure to the public while receiving the Korean Ambassador to Nigeria, Chi Tun Chon Hu, at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja.
Can it be said, in all honesty, that every stakeholder in a mass political organisation as the APC works in tandem protecting the party’s legacies?
I doubt it because, so far, the politics played by Comrade Salihu Mustapha, the Northeast National Vice Chair of the APC who hails from Adamawa State, is doing more harm than good to the party in his home state. In Adamawa State, he is dreaded as having the full backing of the presidency power brokers, also called Aso Rock Villa cabals by the popular media.
This power connection might have been overrated or exaggerated with the sole purpose to make everyone kowtow to him and do his bidding. With his overbearing influence and name dropping, aspirants are now expected to queue up before him to be “anointed” as the Aso Rock favourite.
An unconfirmed source put the current under-the-table price of the so-called anointing for the office of governor at $15 million. It remains to be seen how many aspirants can afford such a stupendous sum besides the official nomination fee.
The overall effect of all this cash-and-carry game is that President Muhammadu Buhari’s dream of free and fair primaries is the gradual erosion of the aforementioned gain of the APC at its last registration and validation exercise. After the brutal loss of Adamawa to the People’s Democratic Party, one expects every hand in the opposition APC to be on the deck to fix the party for winning the crucial 2023 general elections. This fixing is needed more like yesterday because the opposition has been in disarray since the buildup to 2019. And so it has remained. So the Northeast Vice Chairman should be building, not destroying as is the case now.
I implore the APC national secretariat at Abuja to use their good offices to apply restraint on Comrade Mustapha now before it is too late. Otherwise he will kill the party before the general election.
Human memory is so short that nothing is learnt from history. In the buildup to the APC national convention, Comrade Mustapha was literally an orphan until a politician from Adamawa stood for him and he received the all-important endorsement that earned the national post he occupies. Many politicians who knew his backstabbing tendencies and antecedents had deserted him to his fate. Now he is back to his game. To those who helped, “I told you so” is the refrain they are getting.
Well meaning stakeholders had thought Mustapha would galvanise human and material resources and work assiduously to actualise the all-important unity of the APC in Adamawa and Taraba and the the entire Northeast APC. The party lost 2019 for lack of unity.
I’m constrained to use this medium to call out Comrade Mustapha to retrace his steps before it is too late. Also, we urge President Muhammadu Buhari, and the National Chairman Abdullahi Adamu not to turn a blind eye on him in order to gain power in Adamawa and Taraba. Otherwise, APC will be history in these two states in 2023.
Abdulrahaman Buba Kwacham
An All Progressives Staunch loyalist
Aspiring a Senatorial seat of Adamawa
Northern Zone