Indications emerged yesterday to the effects that the division in the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC), may have deepened further after some key party members discovered, via leaked documents, how President Muhammadu Buhari single-handedly dictated the composition of the next Executive Committee of the Party.
Recall that the APC has been grappling with conflicts of interests,q with its chieftains jostling for who controls the incoming leadership of the party, which by implication has the upper hand in deciding the partys next presidential flagbearer.
President Buhari has tactically avoided openly naming or endorsing his successor; however, according to insiders within the party, handpicking the APC Executive Committee will enable him to single-handedly decide who runs to succeed him on the APCs ticket.
According to documents made available to newsmen yesterday, President Buhari personally endorsed all the plans and choices of candidates presented to him by a clique in the party, which is reportedly made up of some northern governors and ministers in his cabinet.
The documents show that the President has signed-off on Sen. Abdullahi Adamu as the party’s National Chairman; Sen. John Akpanudoedehe from the South-South geo-political zone as National Secretary, and Sen. Ken Nnamani, from the South-East, as Deputy National Chairman (South).
The president also reportedly signed-off on other positions that have been pinned down to some geo-political zones.
A source close to the Kaduna State Government House, who craved anonymity, confirmed the documents, saying, Baba (President Buhari) endorsing the zoning formula and the candidate has closed any further debate on the matter.
People will make noise even if it is their own brother that is given this position. So, someone must make decisions to end some of this back-and-forth at some point, he stated.
A close scrutiny of the documents showed that the President first endorsed a set of documents setting out zoning arrangements on March 1, 2022, while he endorsed Abdullahi Adamu and others on February 25, 2022.
How, a party chieftain opposed to the arrangement, and who wished not to be named, lamented that a bad precedent has been set to weaken Nigerias democracy.
He stressed that President Buhari has the right as the partys de-facto leader to show the direction the party should go; but this aspect of one person sitting in a parlor and constituting the APC Exco is bad news for democracy in Nigeria. This is dictatorship baring its fangs and we cannot afford the luxury of silence.
Another chieftain who also pleaded anonymity expressed worry that President Buhari could have verbally directed those he wanted to be elected to the Exco without committing ink to paper in the way he did.
