By Paul  Odili

ALL Progressives Congress (APC), on Tuesday, June 9,   got a lesson in how not to be a majority party!  Like many  Nigerians, I was intrigued by the drama  in the National Assembly.

Beginning with the pre-inauguration  footwork  of members of the  National Assembly  and the  final act  on the floor of the two chambers,  curious  Nigerians  wanted to see  how the minority PDP, long Nigeria’s  dominant and once self-proclaimed Africa’s largest  party (surprisingly, APC  is yet  to wear  a  similargrandiloquent  toga), was taking up  its  new role as the  opposition  party for the first time in 16 years.

Will  the PDP,  shaken to its overwhelming loss at the general elections, find the chutzpah  of the old PDP—the swagger and rumbustious show of dominance-or would it struggle to establish its new identity as opposition party? No one was sure.  But as it turned out, there was the  still old trickery  left in the bags of a once  ‘dying party’.

Dogara and Saraki

APC is rightly embarrassed over the turn of events and have not hidden its frustration.  Clearly, this  type of  baptism into national politics  was not what they bargained for.  The shrill denunciation of  the outcome  of events  by Lai Mohammed, Bola  Tinubu  and other South West APC chieftains makes good newspaper copy but  little sense in real politick.

However, as things stand,  the APC  just gave the PDP a shot in the arm. If APC loses the general elections  in 2019, the foundation was its loss of the National Assembly.

Weeks before the inauguration of the National Assembly,  APC faltered on several grounds. The party’s decision on  the allocation of offices, the zones  and the candidates  of choice rapidly deteriorated   into a fiasco. It could not decide,  one time  it lurched towards zoning and the other decided against zoning. The party wanted  to be different. APC was disdainful of PDP zoning formula without offering a superior alternative, which did not help the confusion it was entering.

Then the party decided that it was going to allow its offices  open to everyone, but along  the  way, decided  that  (well, seems, to me zoning of APC has variety), it would not allow the Senate presidency to go to the North-West  because the presidency is already there and there was the question of whether the South-West should actually get the Speaker, considering that it already had the vice presidency.

Amidst this confusion, it appears the debate shifted to the North-East, which  staked  a strong moral claim the Senate presidency  against  North Central, which was also in contention. Along the way,  there was personality politics.  Bukola Saraki, Ahmed Tinubu, George  Akume,  etc  flexed muscle.

Tinubu, the National Leader of APC, was at the  centre  of this or so it appear. If media reports were to be believed,  Tinubu  had talked Akume  out of the Senate presidency and sold him the deputy slot. He was said to have wanted the North-East to have a shot at it and North-Central to  deputise, which at the moral  level was not a bad argument to  offer.

However, his feint to have South-West produce the Speaker did not  quite jell with  the  moral  platform he articulated,  although it might be argued that since the South-South and South-East, by their voting pattern, did not  give APC much,  it was very convenient for  Tinubu and his manoeuvre.

However, it does appear that in constructing his power base,  Tinubu  did not quite reckon with the other political forces. Saraki  and perhaps  Yakubu  Dogara  had no interest in his  plan.  This is so because  Tinubu’s  plan is a typical South-West template.

As  APC  leader,Tinubu  is pretty much the juggernaut who fashion’s the South-West political structure in the manner he deems fit. The trouble is that  finally  Tinubu has overreached himself, this time.  Saraki is an experienced politician and can quite easily  pull his weight against  Tinubu in political brinkmanship if that was needed.  Unlike in the South-West, where politicians swear oath of allegiance to  Tinubu, to escalate his strategy to the national landscape is bound to be  suffer  grief. It is hard to imagine Saraki  regarding  Tinubu  as his  political superior.

Tinubu’s  plan was not also helped by his disastrous analysis of his party and President  Buhari. APC Nigeria is not yet a political party. APC South-West is a political party. And that perhaps is the only zone where APC is really a political party. In other parts of the country, APC is not yet an organic structure beholden to a common ideology and vision.

To assume that the decision he orchestrated using the instrumentality of the  party  leadership  is binding is surprising,especially, if that is in conflict with the interest of major  factions  in the party.  Without their buy-in, nothing constructed will work.

Moreover, Buhari, the only man with the authority of his office to whip his party into line,  ruled himself out of the controversy on  this issue.  Buhari’s  calculation that he would be muddied if he ventured into this affair and could damage his moral authority,  is both naïve and statesman like and it has  cost APC.

When  Buhari  woke  to the  unfolding  debacle by summoning the meeting at the 11th  hour, when the business of parliament should be taking place and that nobody informed him of this was to complete the circle  of  disaster that was long in coming. Tinubu  made this point in his public rebuke of Buhari  on Wednesday.

I agree that Buhari’s aloofness did not help matters. What is to be wondered is if  Tinubu  considered  Buhari’s behavior strange.  Buhari ran as a Nigerian leader seeking political support and not as a politician seeking popular mandate.  There is a major difference.

Ramrod,   austere, and not given to trifles,   Buhari   is the type of leader who is not going to change his ways notwithstanding this present    calamity   or   Tinubu’s  fulminations.  Like   General  Olusegun Obasanjo,   Buhari   must have a certain feeling of predestination and, therefore, will feel he is above narrow party interest. For all you care,   Buhari   may   feel that he is the vehicle through which APC came to power, while   Tinubu, the politician, will feel that it is the party that brought Buhari   to power.  With this clash in ideology as well as in the mechanics of achieving power, the unraveling of APC may have started.

For the PDP, the APC fiasco has given a boost to its image. PDP has shown better organization and cohesion. Lucky for the PDP it has had 16 years to learn this lesson. What it does with this uppercut, will be seen in the future. Obviously, at institutional level, there is a lot of difference between the two parties.

One and that is APC is at a level of development the PDP was 16 years ago, the PDP on the other hand got carried away by its frequent successes until its defeat in March. By and large, the APC’s change mantra is going to be tested severely in the coming months and years. How it manages its mandate will determine its survival. Right now, the auguries are not good.  Nevertheless, for whatever it is worth, democratic rule in Nigeria needs APC to be strong and vibrant. Ultimately, healthy competition ensures growth and development of democracy.

Odili  lives in  Asaba