wing to disagreements arising from preparations for the recent general election, the Plateau State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been split into two. TheNation reports
UNITY is strength and a house divided against itself cannot stand. These wise sayings vividly illustrate the predicament of the Plateau State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Until two months ago, the APC was the ruling party in Plateau but has now become an opposition party due to disunity among its members.
The genesis of the party’s crisis could be traced to its primaries held in the last quarter of last year to pick candidates for the various elective positions in the recent general election.
There was a sharp disagreement among members over the conduct of the governorship primary in particular. The result of that contest, which saw the emergence of Dr Nentawe Yilewada as its flag bearer for the election, became the primary factor that destabilised the party. The other 17 aspirants protested the emergence of Nentawe, alleging that he was imposed on the chapter by higher authorities.
The inability of the party to resolve the conflict that emanated from the primary eventually resulted in its poor performance at the polls. The first sign that the party was in disarray surfaced when it lost the February 25 presidential election to the Labour Party’s (LP) Peter Obi. It also lost two senatorial seats and five out of the eight House of Representatives seats to the main opposition party, the PDP. It eventually lost the governorship election and the control of the state House of Assembly, by losing in many of the constituencies it represented during the last legislative session also to the PDP.
The Plateau APC went into the 2023 general election as a divided house; the party was split into two factions and remains so to date. One faction comprises the 17 aggrieved governorship aspirants and their supporters. The other faction is made up of members loyal to Lalong and the party’s governorship candidate, Dr Nentawe Yilewada.
It became clearer to all that after the abysmal failure in the 2023 general elections, the aggrieved faction led by Chief Amos Gizo began to launch efforts to create another party secretariat for APC since the APC leadership had failed to address their grievances and bring them back into the fold. Prominent among the new faction of APC are former governor of the state Joshua Dariye, former minister for women affairs and social development Dame Pauline Tallen, former minister of state for information Alhaji Salisu Nakande, former member of the National Assembly Alphonsus Komsol, Chief Amos Gizo, Senator Hezekiah Dimka, Sen. Nora Daduut, Lumumba Adeh, Alhaji Dasuki Nakande, Comptroller Victor Dimka, Chief Danyaro Sarpiya among others.
Those in former gov Lalong’s faction are Dr Nentawe Yilewada, Yusufu Gagdi and Senator Diket Plang. APC stalwart Alphonsus Komsol told The Nation: “The division in Plateau APC began from the presidential primary where the immediate past governor instructed all Plateau delegates to vote for Rotimi Amaechi to emerge as the APC presidential candidate. But, some of us who are die-hard disciples of Tinubu decided to vote Tinubu against Lalong’s presidential candidate. Since then some of us who disobeyed Lalong’s instruction were marked for victimisation in the party. That was where the crack in the party started. But the crack got widened and the party was messed up with the imposition of governorship candidate.”
Shortly after the recent general election in which Lalong himself lost his senatorial bid to the PDP and also failed to deliver his state for President Tinubu, some of the aggrieved members of the APC were said to have engaged in anti-party activities, and were listed up for disciplinary action. The rumour that the party was bent on suspending certain chieftains was confirmed in a recent stakeholders meeting in Jos, when the party chairman, Rufus Bature said: “The APC is aware of the desperate attempts by some members of the party to tear it apart through a wild goose chase of creating a parallel party office. We are aware of their nocturnal activities which we seriously frown at.
“The party has also watched with great dismay the activities of some self-styled leaders who have been jumping from pillar to post in search of federal appointments, especially ministerial appointments. Their embarrassing behaviour has portrayed them as people who want to reap where they did not sow.
“The party took note of their anti-party activities before, during and after the recent general election and has set machinery in motion to deal with such sundry issues at all levels. In doing so, due process would be followed and those who need to be sanctioned would be sanctioned in line with the party’s constitution. Let me advise them to bury the thought in their interest because the party would not allow such selfish individuals who are perpetual office seekers to temper with its rank and file.”
Ishaya Itse, a chieftain of the party, has cautioned Bature not to suspend any party member, because, in his view, he (Bature) lacks the power to do so. Itse called on other members of the party to disregard Bature’s warning. He added that any attempt to suspend anyone amounts to disrespect to the constitution of Nigeria.
In a statement, Itse said: “Rufus Bature is not an elected APC chairman. Therefore, he doesn’t have the right to threaten stakeholders with suspension. I am aware that Lalong has instructed APC wards and local government chairmen to suspend and expel some key members from the party. Such an attempt will fail. According to him, these are the same people that couldn’t deliver their polling units to the APC and they are now coming out with empty threats to create tension and an atmosphere of chaos to look relevant. He disclosed that Lalong couldn’t deliver his ward and that he lost the senatorial election due to non-adherence to the guidelines of the APC, which landed him in total rejection by the voters. He advised Plateau APC to follow the part of honour and work for the overall interest of all members; rather than building a wall of faction and division.
“But, despite the existence of factions in the party in Plateau APC, a member of the House of Representatives, Yusufu Gagdi insists that the chapter is united. He said contrary to rumours that members of the Plateau State APC are at loggerheads with each other, there is no division at the moment. The recent party meeting held at its secretariat, for instance, was not for reconciliation purposes, as speculated, because there is nothing to reconcile in the APC. It was the usual party meeting. I was at the meeting.”
In contrast to Gagdi’s position, a leader of one of the factions of the party, Chief Amos Gizo said there are pending cases requiring reconciliation which the APC leadership has been trying to sweep under the carpet. Gizo who was one of the aspirants that vied for the party’s governorship ticket in the recent election said: “Yes, I was in the recent APC meeting, but I worried that the party leaders claimed to have held a reconciliatory meeting. But, what transpired during the meeting does not look like reconciliation because if it were reconciliation, which factions were reconciled? What was the resolution after the reconciliation?
“Those of us that represented the other faction came even though we were not invited; no invitation was extended to us as stakeholders. It was deceptive for anyone to take that meeting as a reconciliatory meeting. It was just a meeting of critical stakeholders. If you noticed, there was no agenda for the meeting; they handpicked some selected persons to speak. If it was a reconciliation meeting, as they tried to claim, who spoke on behalf of my group? But, we were there as stakeholders. It was not a reconciliatory meeting.
“The APC belongs to all of us. The conference hall where that meeting was held was set up by me when I was chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). So, I consider myself a critical stakeholder. I came to that meeting as the leader of the other group, and I was not allowed to talk. But, Lalong understood that some of us are still aggrieved and he used the opportunity to tender an apology; that, to me, is not reconciliation.
“You cannot talk about reconciliation without talking about what caused the conflict in the first place. So, to me, the meeting was just a waste of time. There was nothing like reconciliation. They will continue to pretend that there is no faction in Plateau APC. Let them look at the APC in Nasarawa State; the people that were denied the party ticket went into the SDP and they won elections. Is that the progress of a ruling party?
“Nobody is contesting Lalong’s leadership of the party. I could not talk of contesting that position because I’m never been a governor. If there was an APC governor before Lalong, he would not have been the party leader; the constitution is very clear about it. But, it is high time they stopped pretending in the interest of the party. We have just started and we shall see how it will end.”
From all indications, there is a big problem in Plateau APC. The party has been split into two factions. The Gizo-led faction, is in the process of setting up its secretariat in a strategic location in Jos. Only genuine reconciliation will resolve the internal conflict in the APC chapter.