***Marwa gets supporters’ nod to go back
The festering crisis within the leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, may have taken a new dimension as the G-5 governors’ who defected from the Peoples Democratic Part, PDP, last year are reportedly considering a possible return to their former party.
A cold war is currently rocking the APC over the composition of its National Executive Council and the 2015 presidential election.
This was just as the former military administrator of Borno and Lagos states, Gen. Buba Marwa, had got his supporters’ nod, after a town hall meeting inYola, Adamawa State, yesterday to dump the APC for the ruling PDP.
This may have put an end to speculations over the disenchantment of the retired general with the APC since Governor Murtala Nyako was handed the control of the APC in the state.
A party source at the weekend told National Mirror that if the leadership crisis in the APC persisted for too long, some of the G-5 governors had been mulling the idea to open discussions with the leadership of the PDP to return before preparations for the 2015 elections kick off fully.
The G-5 governors – Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) and Abdulfattah Ahmed (Kwara) had in November last year defected to the APC over irreconcilable differences with the leadership of the PDP and the Presidency.
But the source, a member of the National Executive Committee, NEC, of the APC, who spoke with journalists, said the party was on the verge of losing its new allies.
He said: “We cannot say all is well because some persons are trying to run the APC the way they ran their former parties and this will not augur well for us because if we continue this way, our desire to get power from the PDP will only be a pipe dream.
“At least, we cannot say that the party has not benefitted anything from the governors who defected from the PDP; but as it is now, some of these governors, we learnt, are beginning to express disappointment about the state of affairs, especially the issue of national officers of the party.
“We even gathered that moves are on for some of them to re-trace their steps to the PDP; that will be disastrous for us in the APC because their return will only confirm that our crisis is irredeemable.
“It is our belief and hope that we are able to manage the seeming crisis of confidence and suspicion among our leaders, but a few of the leaders only want their wishes to be obeyed and nothing else; that will only kill the party.”
Asked whether the purported move by the governors was as a result of the issue of national chairmanship, the source said he was sure that it could be a reason, stressing that some other reasons might also be responsible.
“The issue of national chairmanship is the main issue that has almost torn the party apart, so they might be sensitive to same, but you should also know that in politics, there are interests to be protected.”
National Mirror gathered that one of the APC governors in the South- South did not support the move by some leaders of the party to ‘dash’ the zone the office of national chairman.
According to findings, the governor prefers the South-East to produce the national chairman with the desire that he would be picked as running mate to the presidential candidate of the party.
For another governor from the North-West, his disappointment stems from the fact that he has been told to forget his 2015 presidential ambition for which he has commenced consultations soon after he joined the APC.
For over two weeks now, a cold war had been brewing among the APC leadership over the May 2014 national convention of the party.
While former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu prefers to retain Chief Bisi Akande as national chairman, others, led by Senator Ali Modu Sherif, are rooting for Tom Ikimi.
The Northern caucus of the party has already decided that the slot be zoned to the South-South. This may have been responsible for the alleged face-off between Tinubu and Sheriff at one of the party’s NEC meetings.
Marwa had convened a town hall meeting of his supporters where over 1000 delegates from Adamawa State concluded that “We don’t want APC.”
The former military administrator had asked his supporters at the meeting whether they should return to the PDP, a question to which the majority shouted ‘ayes’.
Marwa had told the gathering that the meeting would put paid to the lies, deceit and lack of justice within the APC, berating the party for its sudden lack of integrity and character.
Tracing the problem of the party to the national leadership foisting Nyako on the party, Marwa regretted that the house they helped built had been taken over by political marauders.
He wondered why state legislators and National Assembly members in the state were yet to follow Nyako into his new party.
A former member of the House of Representatives, Saad Tahir, noted many irregularities, which he said made the APC an aberration and bound for an imminent collapse.
Tahir said: “A house built on a shaky foundation will not stand,” adding that the PDP had already formed government in Adamawa State with the movement of Marwa into its fold.
State treasurer of the party, Musa Bubakari Kamale, put the blame of the crisis rocking the APC in the state on the doorsteps of the national leadership of the party.
He said the leadership of the APC “committed a national blunder” by foisting defecting PDP governors on the party as party leaders.
Marwa’s spokesman, Kamale, added that parting ways with the APC was an attempt to protest the flagrant disregard of democratic ethos by the “lameduck leadership” foisted on the party by Nyako, whom he said was pursuing parochial agenda.
Listing the many sins of the APC in the state, Kamale cited the continued existence of a task force team allegedly controlled by Nyako’s son, Commander Abdulaaziz Nyako, which he said was an aberration.
According to him, going by party rules, upon inauguration of the state interim management committee, all other organs of the party prior to the merger stood dissolved but “that was not the case in Adamawa,” he said.
Meanwhile, Marwa said that he would be meeting with the leadership of the PDP to finalise all protocols necessary to rejoin his former party.
Source: National Mirror
