Slow Motion Consensus

VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA

Those of us who watched the convention of the ruling APC on live TV on Saturday evening to Sunday morning/early afternoon were flabbergasted by its protracted character. New Chairman Abdullahi Adamu read his acceptance speech at noon on Sunday, having sat through the jostling and horse-trading for 30 hours. All the delay was attributable to the fact that, except for the all-important post of chairman, maneuvers to achieve “consensus” candidates were carried out only when delegates were already seated, waiting to cast their ballots. At one point the masters of ceremony were pointing to one shed, saying anything to do with consensus and withdrawal should be directed to that shed, while the main shed should be left for election committee members.

Some contestants who were alleged by their state party chairmen to have withdrawn from the race stormed the podium and loudly denied it. One young man who was contesting for youth leader wept as he announced his withdrawal. Yet another aspirant for zonal youth leader chided the party for ignoring the youth as he withdrew.

Why didn’t they do all of that before they arrived at the convention venue, as PDP did late last year? Sure APC is much larger than PDP, if the number of states controlled by it is anything to go by. If we are to believe APC’s registration figures that 41 million people, more than a third of all the adults in Nigeria, are its members, than surely it is a large organization. The stakes are also much higher in occupying the ruling party’s national and zonal offices, not the least because the senior offices are often accompanied by chairmanship of important federal agencies. APC also helped itself by amending its constitution to transfer the election of zonal officers to zonal party chapters, thus reducing the number from last night’s 78.

Even though rumours flew around for many weeks in political circles and in the news media that President Muhammadu Buhari preferred Senator Abdullahi Adamu as party chairman, it was only last Wednesday that Buhari met with the aspirants and asked them to concede to Adamu. He had met with APC governors a few hours earlier. They, apparently, were the ones that urged him to meet with the aspirants, because he preferred the governors to carry out his wishes while he remained in the background.

Buhari had learnt the hard way that giving instructions to APC governors in the background, without showing his hand, was open to dangerous misinterpretation and overzealousness, as happened with the abortive coup against the Caretaker Chairman Mai Mala Buni. The push to throw out the CECPC leadership was publicly attributed to Buhari’s mandate, and from London he had to issue a statement denying the act and chided the governors responsible for the clumsy deed.

Still, by the time Buhari met with the chairmanship aspirants, it was quite late in the day and many of them had been running around the country, mobilizing support and erecting huge billboards. One former aspirant said yesterday that he spent over N100million, and he wasn’t even among the leading aspirants. It was only on Saturday morning that Senator George Akume wrote a half-hearted letter conveying the decision of six aspirants to quit the race. Akume was on slippery ground because he is a serving Buhari minister. It looked like he cajoled the others to withdraw, lest he incurred the president’s political wrath. Otherwise Akume was qualified to be party chairman, as a former permanent secretary, governor, senator and minister. Ever the calculating strategist, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu wanted Akume as chairman in case he himself wins the party’s presidential ticket later this year and is saddled with a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

Yet, in terms of political experience and apparent character strength, APC could not have produced a chairman better than Senator Abdullahi Adamu. As students back in the late 1970s, we read a lot about him when, as NPN Chairman in the old Plateau State, he really gave NPP’s Governor Solomon Lar a good run for his money. Since then Adamu has been a federal minister, two-term state governor, the first chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum and three-term senator. It is a political career record almost without equal in this Republic, plus his firm disposition and very sharp intellect.

APC however had a rough time enforcing its consensus list with respect to the second most important party post, i.e. national secretary. It took hours of cajoling, right there on convention ground, in full view of live TV cameras, before former Minister of Communications Adebayo Shittu was dragged to the podium to step down for Senator Iyiola Omisore. Aremo Segun Osoba firmly clutched Shittu’s hands as he dragged him to the podium, profusely apologised to him “on behalf of the Southwest and the Yoruba nation” and showered encomiums on him.

While Osoba spoke, Shittu’s face was the most ashen that I have seen in a long time. When it was his turn to speak, Shittu said he was very angry because he “was taken for granted,” probably meaning he was not properly lobbied to withdraw for Omisore. A younger contestant from Shittu’s native Oyo State however said something equally telling. He said traditionally, the Southwestern state that is not APC-controlled is given the first shot at the top available national party office. Oyo is the only non-APC controlled state in the region.

One thing that Osoba said, which Shittu also confirmed, was that in 2015 Buhari appointed him minister without recommendation from the party in the region. If that was the case, why should Shittu be angry now, when he is paid back in the same coins of party non-consultation? In any case, there is a good strategic reason for not making him the national secretary, which no one wanted to talk about publicly. It is the sensitive factor of religion. Shittu is a Muslim, for that matter a well-known Muslim activist. Religion is not supposed to be a potent political factor in the Southwest but party leaders in the region must still be wary, lest they open themselves to media blackmail.

They might however stumble into blackmail of another sort, since new National Secretary Iyiola Omisore has serious controversies hanging on his neck. Opponents could be relied upon to look for weak links in the APC leadership chain, and Omisore could be one of such. Besides, he managed to dislodge the man earlier touted to be the Buhari-approved consensus candidate, so trouble may come from various directions.

The biggest gaffe of the long night was when chairman of the electoral committee, Jigawa State Governor Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, declared “Abdullahi Adamu Aleiro” as the chairman, mixing his name up with another senator, former Kebbi State Governor Mohammed Adamu Aleiro. Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello jumped to his feet, rushed to Badaru and whispered in his ears, prompting him to correct the mistake. It always looked like Badaru was not properly briefed, because after securing the withdrawal of opponents, he regularly declared an aspirant elected even before he asked delegates to affirm the choice, as the law requires. PDP men watching the event must have believed that their babalawo was at work. They were disappointed that Yahaya Bello’s youthful Kogi mouth was not sealed by the charm, so that a legal trap awaited APC down the line.

Sometime after midnight, a long motorcade of flashy SUVs lined up and President Buhari left the convention ground. Minutes later, another, slightly shorter line of SUVs again lined up and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo also left Eagle Square. I was tempted to ask: with the big masquerades gone, why should anyone stay up all night at the venue? They returned Sunday morning in time for the swearing in of the new party officers.

Party leaders must be pondering by now the lessons to be learnt ahead of the next party convention to choose the presidential flag bearer. Much more is at stake during the upcoming convention. Election of party leaders is really the business of the party and its members but in choosing presidential candidate, the party must weigh every aspect of Nigeria’s political history, psychology, media mischief and international ramifications of the choice.

Logistically speaking, it looks like straight forward voting for the aspirants would be smoother than this back and forth cajoling to achieve consensus. Besides, it satisfies the urge of many aspirants to test their popularity. It also gives the elected officers/candidates greater moral authority to say they won the contest, instead of facing allegations that they were imposed. Because in the end it amounts to the same thing; if the president and most state governors agree to support a particular aspirant, who can stop him?