The All Progressives Congress(APC) National Convention slated for March this year has thrown palpable fear and anxiety among party members. This is obvious with the states that the governors elected in the opposition parties have defected to the ruling APC.
Such states are: Rivers, Bayelsa, Enugu, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Taraba and Plateau States. The Kano State governor, Abba Yusuf, is also allegedly having a discussion with APC on how to defect to the party. The APC National Convention is fixed for March this year and is an elective Convention.
It was alleged that members of the National Working Committee had lobbied for the Convention for the National Convention to be nonelective but failed to achieve support. A party member revealed that in those states recently captured by APC, the political leadership in those states would change as the governors would bring in their loyalists, who possibly were not members of APC.
“You see, the State Executives of these new APC states would go to the hands of those loyal to the governors of those states. “As you are aware, APC does not joke with their governors as they have them as the leaders of the party in the states.
“Those APC members from the foundation who joined earlier with the expectations to hold positions in the party must have lost out. “Even those holding positions but aligned with other forces in the states, who are against the state governors would lose out,” he said.
In the National Working Committee, persons like the Deputy National Chairman South, Hon. Emma Enekwu is not likely to come back should he desire to. Also, the APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka; National Vice Chairman, South-South, Hon. Victor Giadom, are not likely to make it back to the NWC.
While Morka is from Delta State, Giadom is from Rivers State. Morka is politically aligned with former Deputy Senate President and APC governorship candidate in Delta State in 2023, Senator Victor OmoAgege before the defection of the state governor, Sheriff Oborevwori into the party.
For Victor Giadom, he was brought into the APC NWC by the Rivers State former governor and former Minister of Transportation, Chief Rotimi Ameachi, in 2015. Today, he is with the Minister of Federal Capital Territory and also former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike.
Wike is not an APC member yet but a key supporter of the National leader of APC, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In Rivers, there is no way Gidom can come back as an NWC member because he has shown his bias against the State governor, Siminalaye Fubura.
Giadom believes that Wike would decide who gets what in APC and PDP in Rivers State in 2027. Wike, who brought Fubura as a governor of Rivers State in 2023 on the platform of the opposition PDP is no longer on the same political table with Fubura.
The Rivers State APC would be peculiar scenario as nonmembers would want to determine who gets what in the party in the state. In Enugu State, the governor, Peter Mbah, would take over the structures of the party in the state. The Deputy National Chairman South, Emma Enekwu, might see himself removed from the NWC.
Enekwu is the longest serving NWC member since 2014. He was elected into the NWC as National Vice Chairman, South East, under Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as National Chairman. In 2018, he was re-elected in the same position under Senator Adams Oshiomhole.
In 2020, the Oshiomhole NWC was sacked and the party brought in a Caretaker Committee led by the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni. After two years, the Buni Caretaker Committee was dissolved and Enekwu was elected in 2022 as APC Deputy National Chairman, South, under the National Chairmanship of former governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
Other long serving members of the APC NWC are the National Vice Chairman North East, Dr. Salihu Mustapha and National Vice Chairman, South South, Hon. Victor Giadom. They came into the APC NWC in 2015/2016.
While Mustapha replaced Engr. Babachir in the NWC when he was appointed Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Giadom replaced Hon Ngofa Oji in the NWC as Deputy National Secretary when he (Oji) was made an Ambassador. Some of the NWC members are barely two years in the party leadership with the National Chairman, Prof. Nentewa Yiltdawa just five months in office.
A party chieftain at the APC National Headquaters, who craved anonymity, has predicted an implosion in the party with the National Convention. According to him: “If the Convention was not well managed, it would lead to crisis that might affect the fortunes of the party.
“You can’t retain some and ask some to leave and you cannot have a governor in State and you would not allow him to determine the representatives of the party in the state. “It is in this National Convention of the APC that Nigerians would know how far the African Democratic Congress (ADC) would go.”
