MAI MALA BUNI’S TACTICAL REBOUND

APC still dances on the precipice despite Buni’s return, writes Bolaji Adebiyi

In an article titled, APC Dances on the Precipice, published in THISDAY edition of January 28, 2022, it was argued that legal challenges laid ahead of the ruling All Progressives Congress’ plan to hold its national convention on February 26, 2022, because of presumed several infractions of its constitution. The situation has worsened since then. Not only was the convention postponed by one month to March 26, 2022, even the proposed date is challenged by a court order that restrained the holding of the event pending the determination of a suit filed by some aggrieved members of the party.

Interestingly, the court order, procured in November last year, came to light only last week as the intrigues in the ruling party intensified with the attempt by a clique in the party’s governors’ forum to shunt aside Mai Mala Buni, the Yobe State governor, who is also the chairman of its Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee. Also set for the guillotine was the head of James Akpanudoedehe, the voluble secretary of the committee.

President Muhammadu Buhari, party members were told, had ordered the removal of Buni and his replacement with Sani Bello, the youthful governor of Niger State. The announcement coincided with the outbound flight of the president who was on his way to London for medicals. Curiously, the news of the presidential decision came not from any of his aides but from anonymous sources which nonetheless made headlines of the mainstream and social media. Bello’s take-over of the party’s national secretariat the next day and his rash of decisions to prune down the convention planning sub-committees as well as the summoning of an emergency National Executive Committee meeting were the only confirmation of the presidential order.

Subsequent events revealed that it was only a palace coup that was bound to fail spectacularly. Obviously, the plotters exaggerated their influence on the presidency and underrated Buni’s capacity to resist his ouster even while on the sickbed like the president. Anyway, a meeting and a counter meeting in London on Tuesday and Wednesday resolved the matter in favour of the ever-calm Yobe State governor who rebounded yesterday retaking command of the party. First, in a terse statement by Akpanudoedehe, recuperating Buni put in abeyance the NEC meeting scheduled for yesterday, disarming his adversaries who had planned to use it to upstage him. His next move is awaited.

Whatever that is, Buni and the APC need to worry about the legal mines that lace their paths and take practical steps to detonate them. Reference had earlier been made to the shaky legal foundation of the CECPC, which has been compounded by the unconstitutional extension of its tenure by the president in June last year. For a party in such a deep hole, the thing to do is to stop digging. This is not about to happen as the informal power brokers of the party appear bent on deepening the overthrow of its constitution, a tendency that is at the heart of the crises.

Unable to maintain their hold within the context of the constitution, the power brokers continue to use informal organs to subjugate the formal structures of the party to the exclusion of the majority of its members. For instance, under what section of the APC constitution did the president derive the power to perfunctorily remove or appoint the party’s chairman? Even if he was flexing his presidential muscle, should it not have occurred to his enforcers to use the procedures laid down in the party constitution?

It is the same way the governors of the party have gone about trampling on its constitution so much so that their pressure group, Progressive Governors’ Forum, which is not a formal organ of the party has practically dominated and taken away the powers of the National Working Committee and the NEC. No doubt, with their states’ treasuries in their pockets, the governors wield a lot of influence but that ought to be put into positive and creative use no matter the exigencies of their political objectives. And except they curb their excesses the APC appears doomed.

If they are in doubt about this, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s hint that it would insist on total compliance with its rules and regulations, as well as the law, should clear the doubt. One of its rules is that parties are bound by their constitution and must comply strictly with its provisions. Another word for that is internal party democracy, right? Here, the APC needs to be careful and avoid the road back to Zamfara. It needs to get its lawyers to examine whether its proposed extra-ordinary national convention proposed for March 26 is on a sound footing with regard to Article 25 (A) (i) of its constitution, which states: “The National Convention of the Party shall be held once in Two (2) years at a date, venue and time to be recommended by the National Working Committee and approved by the National Executive Committee subject to the giving of the statutory notices to the Independent National Electoral

Commission and at least fourteen (14) days notice given to members eligible to attend.”

Yes, the CECPC, which now stands in for the NWC has recommended March 26 but the constitution requires the stamp of approval of the NEC. So, has the NEC approved the March 26 date proposed by its CECPC? This seems to be the question Bello was trying to answer when it scheduled the now-cancelled meeting. Although other stakeholders tend to believe that he and his clique might have had other intentions, Buni needs to consider the legal implication of not seeking NEC approval for the convention date.

To overlook this, no matter the political exigencies might be fatal for the party. It could amount to, as lawyers would say, building something on nothing, it would not stand. This, as Abubakar Malami, the attorney-general of the federation and minister of Justice, has reportedly warned Buhari, is a legal risk that the APC is taking. It remains to be seen how the intrigues will end.

Adebiyi, the managing editor of THISDAY Newspapers, writes from bolaji.adebiyi@thisdaylive.com