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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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ANPP: A mission at self-discovery
THE All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP), the nation's second largest political party has tentatively fixed December 11 for its forthcoming National Convention amid discordant tunes.
More than 16 months after the 2003 general elections in which the party lost two states to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), plummeting from nine to seven, it appears to be in a mission to rediscover itself without much progress.
While the party announced last week that it was fine-tuning the details of the proposed convention, it was nevertheless enmeshed in a number of crises that threatened its existence. As a pointer, there is the issue of N300 million bribery allegation, levelled against its National Chairman, Chief Don Etiebet allegedly given to him by the PDP for yet to be disclosed reasons.
Though the allegation had been investigated and found to be untrue, there is a consensus that the issue was merely being papered over, with a possible resurrection in future.
In disclosing the outcome of the investigations into the allegation, ANPP's National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Nnamdi Olebara argued that the allegation was aimed at creating more divisions within the party.
Said Olebara: "A panel headed by Gen. Bashir Magashi (rtd), national legal adviser, was set up to look into the allegation, while Deputy National Secretary, Dr. Francis Egu was appointed acting National Secretary. It was discovered that the allegation was meant to create more divisions and cause crisis. The former National Secretary, Alhaji Sani el Katuzu was therefore suspended from the party "for reasons of serious allegations bordering on credibility, misappropriation, insubordination and incompetence."
He added: "Besides, the ANPP passed a vote of confidence on its National Chairman, Etiebet and absolved him of complicity in a N300 million bribe from the presidency. It also enjoined members of the party to desist from making unguarded statements that would further create confusion and division in the party."
Besides, the party is also contending with the alleged disloyalty of the governors to the course of the party, especially in the prosecution of the suit instituted by its presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari against President Olusegun Obasanjo. At the height of the case, some of the governors allegedly made tacit attempts to prevail on Buhari to drop the case but insisted otherwise. However, the question of disloyalty in the party became a national discourse, when immediately after last year's election, an ANPP governor, Alhaji Adamu Aliero of Kebbi State visited Obasanjo in Aso Rock to congratulate him, when the party was yet to take a position.
The governor has since clarified the situation, stressing that his visit to the presidency was not aimed at congratulating Obasanjo but for other urgent national issues.
Another ANPP governor, Alhaji Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State spoke in the same vein at the weekend. Sani debunked insinuations that the governors abandoned the party's presidential flag bearer, adding that they were only respecting the rule of law, since the case was still in court. While describing the speculations as baseless, he said the governors and Buhari still maintain close relationship.
The Zamfara State governor maintained that unless the case in court was concluded nobody in the ANPP would say anything about who would be the party's presidential candidate in 2007. He insisted that the party was presently concerned about the outcome of the court case against the PDP, which they have not lost hope.
Said Sani: "I don't know why people are insinuating that we have abandon our presidential candidate. It is also surprising that people are busy planning for 2007 when we have just spent one year out of the four years tenure. Besides, the question of whether the ANPP will endorse Gen. Buhari for 2007 does not arise because we have not lost hope of winning the case against the PDP."
Again, while the party is plotting its National Convention, there is a groundswell of opinion that it lacked focus for the future. Inspite of the explanation by the governors on why the talk of presidential candidates for 2007 is relegated to the background, analysts are of the view that the party could still make do with the issue in order to prepare for the task ahead. In order to make any meaningful impact in 2007, they posit that any serious candidate should begin to put the necessary structures in place "because it takes a lot of time, money and energy to traverse, the length and breadth of Nigeria during electioneering campaigns."
But Olebara said that the December National Convention, which would be non-elective is target at correcting all the "misconceptions in the party." He, however, promised that the details of the convention would be disclosed as soon as possible.
However, The Guardian gathered during the week that the convention is being midwife by a five-man committee to be headed by one of the former governors. One of the issues on the agenda is the ratification of the zoning formula of the party and how to resolve the various cases of indiscipline. Besides, the crisis and the subsequent dissolution of the state executive committee in Abia, Cross River, Imo, Kano and Anambra states would also come up for discussion. Sole Administrators and Caretaker Committees, have since been set up to administer the states for a period of 90 days.
It was learnt that the party might also discuss the 2007 general elections and how to select its presidential flagbearer to avoid being caught nappy. "As a party, we need to have a tentative arrangement just in case we lose out in the case pending before the court. We are not playing the 2007 presidency up because we are optimistic on our case against the PDP," a source said.
The lead counsel of the party at the Court of Appeal, Chief Mike Ahamba (SAN), corroborated this position. He said that he felt sorry for Nigeria "whose citizens are talking about any general elections whether by 2007 or some other dates when a major electoral misnomer has been or is about been swept under the carpet." Before his suspension last week, ANPP former National Secretary, El-Katuzu, equally believes that any talk about 2007 presidency is an attempt to sweep the alleged injustice of 2003 elections away.
Said he: "For us in the ANPP, 2007 does not exist. Let me state that there is a very slim chance of our participating in the general elections of that year if the electoral fraud in the land, which has now been entrenched in our body polity is not exorcised. And we cannot see any possibility of a drastic change in the conduct of elections from what is happening daily. There is still not change in the situation. It will be a carryover of the old order and this is our fear. What has happened will continue to happen, anybody can predict this."
El-Katuzu continued: "We have not recovered from the shock of last year's elections and it is only the court case that we are concerned with and not 2007. There will be no 2007. What will happen is that all of us will sit down and watch these people get onto their drawing board and come out with a list of these who are to be in various positions. Under this kind of arrangement, no sane, credible politician would love to go out there and waste his time and resources, pursuing what will only be a farce."
Though a lot of people believe that it could be politically inexpedient to hinge the hope of the party on the outcome of its litigation against the PDP, the party's lead counsel was of the view that the wait is worth the while.
Ahamba said: "I would like to report that everything is going on fine. We have commenced the presentation of evidence before the court. We have up to 80 witnesses and we hope to take more. It is a petition that covers the whole country. Therefore, it is not a one- day affair and our client is essentially hopeful. I believe we should be out of that court in the next two months. I know there could be adjournments, but you cannot go faster than it is possible."
As the party battles to reposition itself, a new dimension to the prevailing discordant tunes has set in.
Informed sources alleged that the face-off El-Katuzu and Etiebet is as a result of their inherent personal interests for 2007.
The Guardian learnt that Etiebet is believed to be nursing a presidential ambition on the belief that the ANPP might zone its Presidential ticket to the South in 2007. This is against the calculation that it might not be expedient to re-zone the Presidency to the North, having done so in 2003. Etiebet is not new to the Presidential race.
During the ill-fated transition programme of the late Gen. Abacha, Etiebet was a leading Presidential aspirant. He bestrode the nation's political climate under the aegis of the defunct National Consensus Party of Nigeria (NCPN) until he got on the wrong side of the military regime.
At present, the political permutation is that if the ticket goes to the South, Etiebet being the only visible Southerner in the party after the death of the vice-presidential candidate of the party, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, the lot could fall on him to contest the 2007 Presidency. It was therefore, alleged that there could be a subtle attempt to weed out possible opposition to this agenda. The recent suspension of the National Scribe is believed to be the first towards achieving this aim.
There is also the question of some ANPP governors nursing the ambition of contesting the 2007 Presidency, though Buhari wants the issue to be treated as a taboo. The game plan therefore is to whittle down the influence of such governors before the December 11 National Convention, where the issue of which zone will produce the next Presidential candidate would be decided. It is being alleged that the clash of ambitions within the top echelons of the party is responsible for the continued absence of the governors from public functions involving the party.
Even as the animosity amongst top leaders of the party continues to deepen, it is generally agreed that Etiebet would need to work extra had for the party to avoid total disintegration. As it is, it appears that stakeholders find it difficult to trust him, as they accuse him of constantly romancing with the ruling party. An aggrieved member of the Lagos branch of ANPP told The Guardian last week that the ANPP's boss has not distanced himself enough from the PDP since the last polls, in order to avoid the allegations against him.
The source said: "The National Chairman of our party had been romancing the PDP government since 2003. In December 2003 when President Obasanjo, the man the ANPP would want Nigerians to believe, was not properly elected hosted the Commonwealth Heads of government, Etiebet was at the State House on the invitation of the President to be part of the welcoming party.
"Again, when the PDP-led government imposed a state of emergency in Plateau State, the ANPP National Chairman was in the chambers of the House of Representatives to embrace the PDP Chairman, Audu Ogbeh and gave a message of solidarity to the PDP led government's decision."
Apart from the rumoured ambition of Etiebet, the party is also believed to be divided along the Presidential ambitions of Ibrahim Babangida and Buba Marwa on one hand and Buhari and Atiku Abubakar on the other. For instance, the trio of Attahiru Bafarawa (Sokoto), Ahmed Sani (Zamfara) and Adamu Aliero (Kebbi) are said to be behind Babangida.
The Yobe State Governor Bukar Ibrahim; Alhaji Saminu Turaki (Jigawa) and Sheriff Bunu (Borno) oscillate between Atiku and Marwa. The Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau is the only visible governor behind the defeated ANPP's Presidential candidate.
As the ANPP battles to wriggle itself out of the existing political cobwebs, former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh, who is a stakeholder in ANPP in a telephone chat with The Guardian believes the party would emerge from the crisis stronger than before. Momoh posited that all the problems facing the party would at the end of day, toughen it to meet the challenges which the 2007 elections pose.
In a previous interview, he had argued that the hiccups bedevilling the party were not peculiar to it alone, stressing that all other parties have their fair share of the crises.
Momoh said: "It's not the ANPP alone that has crisis. There are schisms in other political party. The ANPP is made of AN and APP. AN was a later addition to APP. The AN wing of the APP was the National Solidarity Association (NSA), the group that wanted to bring in former military President Ibrahim Babangida to contest the 2003 election. But some people rushed to form the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the United Nigeria People's Party (UNPP). But the arrangement was for this group to have come together with the APP as a body."
He added: "It is part of that group that negotiated the alliance that brought the change of name from APP to ANPP. So talking of schism, there are some groups in ANPP and these groups are intact in a way. It may well be that their groups are gearing for 2007. And may want to have an advantage over other units within ANPP. It is the same thing in PDP. It is even worse in PDP. PDP is constituted by over 105 groups. But while most of the groups sank their identity, PDM remained intact."`
Another ANPP governor, Alhaji Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State spoke in the same vein at the weekend. Sani debunked insinuations that the governors abandoned the party's presidential flag bearer, adding that they were only respecting the rule of law, since the case was still in court. While describing the speculations as baseless, he said the governors and Buhari still maintain close relationship.
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