Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, (APC) appears engulfed in a power struggle within it. It is still not clear how many factions and fractions are involved but everything points to sharp differences among contending forces about who the cap fits as far as the presidential candidate of the party is concerned.
The party leadership headed by Senator Abdullahi Abdullahi does not appear to be on a same page with the governors elected on the party’s platform. Senator Adamu looks like insisting on an earlier analogy that the party will suffer a defeat in 2023 if it fields a candidate from the Southern end of Nigeria. the reasoning there is that the governors who will protect electoral interests of the party are mainly in the North.
In the past few days, that position suffered a defeat with the governors arguing and enforcing compliance with the zoning principle.
The announcement of a candidate of Northern origin by Senator Adamu at a Monday meeting of the party must have shocked other centres of power in the party. The governors have, interestingly, stood their ground after a meeting with the president who is generally regarded as the leader of the party.
Obviously, all factions and fractions have access to the president on the matter and it is difficult to understand how that can be the situation and yet there is the manifest confusion. Hence, the conclusion of those who believe that the ‘confusion’ is a planned script.
Planned script to achieve what when the president is talking of a third straight win? Politics Nigeriana perhaps!
