The Emerging APC (2)

I published the first instalment of this article on February 27, 2013 intending to write the concluding parts as the emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) fully crystallised. I also made commentaries on the APC in subsequent articles-“Nigerian Political Party System” Parts 1 and 2 (September 18 and 25 2013) and “Person of 2013” (January 15, 2014). I considered my comments on the APC and the political party system as friendly advice, but I do not think the articles made a convivial impact on the recipients judging from the subtle and not-so-subtle responses from the politicians and their “intellectual wing”! In “The Emerging APC” I wrote that “The incipient APC however appears to be the first serious challenge to the PDP’s hegemony-if the planned merger of the ACN, CPC, ANPP and elements from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Democratic Peoples’ Party (DPP) is successfully consummated and the emerging entity is internally cohesive, prospects are that the PDP will face its toughest battle yet in 2015!” hinting at the absolute necessity for the APC leaders not to sacrifice internal cohesion as they sought to build a large party that could challenge the PDP. In the same article I warned that “there will yet be fights over control of party structures and positions; and there will be severe jostling over selection of electoral candidates; the party runs the risk of presenting controversial candidates and inheriting voter prejudices and perceptions”. The recent party conventions (and the earlier entry of the defecting “new” PDP governors has somewhat destabilised several state chapters of the party (Ogun, Kano, Benue, Adamawa, Sokoto, Edo, Kwara, etc.) and aspects of its national structure. I also noted in that article that “the emerging party will face strenuous efforts at sabotage, from outside and within; and it could itself self-destruct!” In “Nigerian Political Party System” Part 1, I wrote that “it is not certain what the merger of all these disparate elements into the APC would produce-the party could re-create a social democratic grouping with progressive credentials or less cheerfully a form of sectarian-populist fascism could emerge.” In this quote, I was already (as far back as September 2013!) anticipating the fact that the emerging APC was making itself vulnerable to charges of sectarianism in its composition and leadership and dissecting the options the group faced as being one between genuine progressive social democracy and what I characterised then as “sectarian-populist fascism”. It doesn’t seem obvious to me (and probably to most objective Nigerians!) that the party chose true social democracy! I stressed this point further asserting that the party “…has a window of opportunity to position itself as qualitatively different from the PDP by focusing on policy and integrity, and putting its best foot forward. It is not evident that APC will do this, as it concentrates on attracting defectors from the PDP and risks pushing unviable options to the electorate.” In my view, the APC has so far chosen the short cut to power rather than the rigourous but sustainable path of building a formidable ideas-based, policy-defined, progressive social democratic party! I subtly lamented this in the second part of “Nigerian Political Party System” thus, “…we are yet to evolve a political party system in its normal characterization in which there are clearly defined parties with contrasting visions, ideologies and policy platforms and with stable membership and programmes. Instead the parties have fluid and fluctuating members... and there is very little discussion around policy and ideology”. Sadly there was no intelligent response, even from the self-characterised “intellectual wing” of the APC! Indeed someone sought to justify the undiscriminating composition of the APC based on the UK Liberal Democrats alliance with the Conservative Tory Party! Let us hope that the outcome of all elections the liberal democrats have subsequently participated in does not predict the fate of the APC! When a party has a base of supporters which it has cultivated based on some ideological standpoint, it cannot presume to still retain that support whenever it has or is perceived to have abandoned that platform without permission or consent of its base! I believe I also expressed (what I later discovered to be) widely-held reservations over the APC’s non-ideological evolution through other less-public mechanisms within the presumed base and support system of the party. I re-assert that view that the APC may be punished by its base for leaving what they may consider to be the substance while chasing elusive shadows (“arodan” I believe is what the Yorubas call such enterprise!). In “Person of 2013” in which I reviewed economic and political developments in the last year, I noted that “politically the most significant development was the creation of the All Progressives Congress, the opposition coalition which, in spite of its many limitations, promises to make our politics more competitive. It is a pity that its success in deepening political competition was probably somewhat undermined by the cynical manner in which it seeks to inherit, through a wholesale political “organ transplant”, the heart and soul of the PDP!” I went further to state that “Asiwaju Bola Tinubu would clearly be the pre-eminent political actor of 2013 forging APC out of disparate interests and challenging PDP’s political hegemony. It is debatable if he hasn’t sacrificed his new grouping’s credibility as a truly “progressive” party in the process and may be taking some of his core constituencies for granted, but his impact on Nigerian political development in this dispensation has been huge.” I hope the APC’s loss of Ekiti in its first electoral test under that brand name (following on its precursor’s similar loss in Ondo) is not the first sign of a political base taken for granted!!!