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Rough road to new beginning
Rough road to
new beginning
SIMON IBE, Political Editor
THE
internal contradictions within the Alliance for Democracy (AD) began to manifest
at the onset of the Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar transition programme when
political associations were busy shopping for allies to team up with for the
purpose of registration as parties
Chieftains of what eventually
became the AD variously tried to enter into working relationships with the
groups that later became the All Peoples Party (APP) now the All Nigerian
Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Both efforts failed
as leaders of the AD were said to have spotted politicians that worked for the
late Gen. Sani Abacha within those camps and thus ruled that there were
irreconcilable differences between them and both groups.
On the eve of the stoppage of
registration formalities, the late Chief Bola Ige and a few other leaders of the
groups that came together to form AD succeeded in pushing their application
through and they were, in controversial circumstances, registered as the third
of the three parties that scaled the hurdles put in place to determine
associations that would qualify as political parties.
Thereafter, the AD became
identified as the party in total control of the South West geo-political zone
and whoever was identified as its candidate for any elective position was as
good as elected. This made the primaries for their assembly and governorship
positions to be hotly contested.
When it was time to select their
presidential candidate, however, a select group of the elders of the pan Yoruba
socio-cultural group, Afenifere, retired to a conclave in Ibadan and
after their session, emerged to announce Chef Olu Falae the candidate above the
now late Chief Bola Ige, who the younger elements within the party had favoured
for the position.
That was when the bubble burst.
Though Chief Ige and his supporters did not, at that point, openly voice their
disagreement with the decision, close watchers of the politics of the South West
immediately knew that a big crack had developed.
The Ige group did not
enthusiastically embrace the candidature of Chief Falae and even when he became
the APP/AD joint ticket flagbearer, they did not campaign vigorously for him,
because the governors of the zone were all Ige’s acolytes. The disagreement
between the two groups, however, blew into the open when Chief Ige was offered a
ministerial portfolio by the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo government and the Afenifere
chieftains rejected it, insisting that the job should have been given to the
party, not to Ige as a person. Chief Ige, who was Deputy leader of Afenifere,
defied the group and took the appointment.
He had always seen himself as the
political head of the party while Chief Abraham Adesanya was the head of
socio-cultural organ, Afenifere and he therefore felt betrayed by the Afenifere
Chiefs who denied him the chance to gun for the presidency. Thereafter, he
set about trying to retrieve the party from them, which they, expectedly,
resisted.
He supported Adamu Song for
chairmanship of the party while the Afenifere chiefs threw their weight
behind Ambassador Mamman Yusuf. The problem persisted and spilled over to the
Abuja convention of the party that was expected to unify the groups. This was
not to be as the Ige group, fortified by the governors of the South West and
majority of the non-Yoruba members of the party, held their own convention at
Eagles Square and elected Alhaji Ahmed Abdulkadir, while the Afenifere-backed
Ambassador Yusuf group held their convention at Abuja Gardens and returned Yusuf
as chairman.
The Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC), however, recognised the Abdulkadir executive which
continued in office till the 2003 general elections. The crisis within the party
did not abate, notwthstanding the death of Chief Ige and the INEC recognition of
Abdulkadir’s executive. Some of the governors, led by Asiwaju Bola
Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos State stuck to the ideals of Chief Ige, which was that AD
should be distinct from Afenifere, while the Afenifere Chieftains
insisted that the two are one and the same thing. They insisted that they must
continue to have an overbearing influence on the governors and other elected
political office holders, which this group of leaders vehemently resisted.
The result was that the AD/Afenifere
house entered the 2003 elections badly factionalised and came out of it
routed. When the dust of the elections cleared, only Lagos State was left
standing out of the six AD governments that had been firmly within the grasp of
the AD from the 1999 election. The PDP had swept off, not only the other five
governors but also a vast majority of the state and national assembly seats of
the other states, except Lagos.
As "compensation" for
not challenging the crushing defeat of his party in its erstwhile safe zone,
Alhaji Abdulkadir was made one of the Advisers of President Obasanjo. Upon his
exit, his then deputy, Chief Michael Koleosho took over, but the centre still
could not hold, because the face-off between the followers of Ige in the AD, now
led by Gov. Tinubu, and the Afenifere elders continued, with both camps
manouvering to gain control of the AD.
Another opportunity for them to
test their strength presented itself when the party announced its national
convention for December 16 last year to elect a substantive executive, since
Abdulkadir had resigned his position to take office within the presidency.
The man, however, resurfaced to
add what commentators saw as an unsavoury twist to the tale, claiming that he
was to preside over the convention.
Those opposed to his move read
meanings into it, with some alleging that he had been sponsored to come and
destroy AD or foist a leadership on it that would act to a script written from
outside the party. Expectedly, the pro-Ige group, which had since the 2003
electoral fiasco fallen out with him checkmated him by deciding at the last
minute, to move their own convention to Lagos.
This meant that while the pro-Ige
group was in Lagos electing Chief Bisi Akande, the immediate past governor of
Osun State as national chairman of their faction of AD, the pro-Afenifere group,
led by Abdulkadir got together in Abuja and elected Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa
as chairman of their faction of the party. INEC refused to recognise both
executives but rather gave the party a deadline of October 31 to put its house
in order or be de-registered.
The Akande faction has been
willing to subject itself to a new convention but the Akinfenwa faction, buoyed
by a recent endorsement by some Afenifere chieftains has been insisting
that it would have nothing to do with the Lagos unity convention. Akinfenwa
seems, however, to be on his own this time around, going by recent reports that Afenifere,
most other stakeholders of the party and INEC have thrown their weight behind
the Lagos convention.
If this turns out to be the case, it means that
at last, the national executive that would emerge from this convention would be
recognised by INEC as the authentic executive of the party which has, for long,
been dogged by crises. Then, whoever is still aggrieved would have no other
option than to seek an alternative platform if they cannot conform with what
seems to be a new beginning for the AD.
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