Being an Address by the National Chairman of APC, Senator (Dr) Abdullahi Adamu, CON, (Turakin Keffi) on the occasion of the Extra-ordinary Emergency Meeting of the National Executive Committee of the Party, Abuja, Wednesday, April 20, 2022.
I am delighted to extend a very warm welcome to all of you, especially the newly-elected members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). This extra-ordinary emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) is evidence that we have overcome. Whatever were our problems in the immediate past, we have shown once more that APC is not just a political party; it is a united and unbreakable family. Yesterday we trembled but today we must feel free to dance owambe.
I invite us to live the truth of the hackneyed saying that honour is due to him who deserves it. We are gathered here today as a great party because one man’s political wisdom made it possible. The man to whom this great honour is due is no other than the great national leader of our great party, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR. On your behalf, it is my honour and privilege to very warmly and specially welcome this great son of Nigeria to this extra-ordinary emergency meeting of the NEC. I salute you, Mr President.
Some of us may have forgotten that in the weeks leading to our just concluded national convention, half-baked analyses and out right hostile and uninformed predictions over the fate of our party became a national pastime among some of our elites. They predicted doom; but the sun shone brightly over our party. They predicted that the APC would implode. It did not. They predicted that our party would emerge tattered and as a shadow of its former self. It did not.
The one man who saved our party and forced the doomsayers to munch their own words was President Muhammadu Buhari. I do not think we can thank or even appreciate him enough. But I am sure he would be content with these four words of gratitude from the bottom of the heart of the party and the NWC: THANK YOU, MR PRESIDENT.
President Buhari made history as the first man to be elected and re-elected as president on the platform of the All Progressives Congress. Even his worst critics will agree that he has done his best for the party. He nurtured it from an amalgam of political parties with different ideologies into a formidable, united political family, the biggest in Africa today. He has done his best for the party. We too must do ours so that the labour of the hero of our party will not be in vain.
This extra-ordinary emergency meeting of the NEC became necessary because of the circumstances leading to the delayed convention of our party. It is meant to kill a couple of birds with one stone, firstly for the NWC to have its first meeting with NEC and appraise itself vis-à-vis the need for it to begin the delicate process of re-inventing and re-positioning itself; and secondly, to begin the process of winning the 2023 general elections. We have some bridges to cross along the way.
The NWC must plan to succeed. Failure is not an option. Earlier, I said that having weathered the storm, we can now dance owambe. But I caution that we must dance it small, small. The task before us is much more than a task. It is a burden. It is our duty to shoulder it even if we have to borrow strong shoulders from Atlas. But I trust we have strong shoulders to bear it. This is not a physical burden; it is a moral burden of leadership, the most complicated form of leadership thrust by the divine upon all those who lead human beings gathered in communities, political parties and nations.
As we see it, this burden has two critical parts to it. The first part is the full and complete unity of the party; the second is winning the 2023 general elections. How we handle the first will determine how we achieve the second. We must take urgent and determined steps now to comprehensively unite our party at all levels – federal, state, local government and wards. A political party emerging, as our party did, from its recent challenges must submit itself to a), soul searching in order to know its faults and avoid existential errors of the head or the heart now and in the future; and b), begin the process of burnishing its image as a new party forged from the crucibles of its past and immediate experience.
The lack of unity in our party at all levels is obvious to all of us. None of us can pretend to be unaware of this and the threat it poses to the party. It was in an effort to unite the party at all levels that the former Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) found it necessary to appoint a reconciliation committee to undertake this critical task to save the party. I recall Mr President’s warning to us not to be unmindful of what happened to PDP in 2014/2015. Our party is not immune to a similar fate should it allow itself to be factionalised and weakened by grievances that force the leaders and the members to pull in different directions. I was privileged to chair the reconciliation committee. I came away from the assignment fully conversant with the role of egos and self-pride in the affairs of the party.
I confess that it was not an easy task. The grievances were deep with hardened positions constituting obstacles to our efforts at reconciliation. The problem, really, is a battle of supremacy between the serving state governors and their predecessors in office. It is a crisis fuelled by ego. Someone wrote a book called Ego is the Enemy. I agree. Ego has widened the gulf between the serving and former governors. Ego has turned them into bitter enemies. Because of ego, the two groups are pulling our party in different directions in a manner that constitutes existential threat to its victory at the polls next year.
The serving governors and the former governors are powerful men, each of whom can boast of a large number of followers in their various states. It is said that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. Similarly, when two powerful groups of politicians fight, the party suffers because it is trampled underfoot by rich and powerful men.
We cannot let this continue because it constitutes clear and obvious danger to our party. We must have the courage not to be mealy-mouthed about it. The serving governors are the leaders of the party in their various states. This is in keeping with our party constitution. It is important for the former governors to recognise that party structure and respect it. Our party constitution makes no room for two state leaders of the party. There is no reason to compete with the serving governors for the leadership of the party. They were supreme in the past; they cannot be supreme now. They have become statesmen in their own right. But they must allow the governors to do their job. They must feel free to offer advice but they must not insist on their superior wisdom.
The former governors, some of whom are now senators, are still powerful political leaders in their own right. They remain absolutely relevant in the affairs of the party in their various states. The serving state governors cannot afford to treat them with disrespect or seek to undermine their relevance in the scheme of things without doing damage to the party. The way forward is for both groups to stop nursing and serving their egos. They may not be able to bury their egos but they must bury the hatchets that have become weapons in the defence of their egos.
Both groups must make sacrifices for the sake of the party. The party must enforce this position. The serving governors and the former governors must each recognise their boundaries, and cultivate mutual respect for one another. If the two groups reconcile in earnest it will be easy for the party to redress the grievances of the members who have become part of the problem. United, we can face our challenges of leadership, relevance and victory at the polls next year. Unity is a duty we owe ourselves. Our watch word from now should be: APC First.
If we are united, the second burden will be lighter and easier to bear. As things stand, our party stands head and shoulders above the rest of the political parties. We have 41 million registered members. No other party comes close to this huge and impressive number. Our party controls the national assembly and the majority of the state governments. On the face of it, we have good reasons to crow. But managing and holding on to success is a critical element in human and party management. If our huge numbers tempt us to be complacent, we may wake to see that we are called upon to pay a surprise price. We must guard against complacency; we must take nothing for granted; we must manage our successes as good managers. Politics is a realm of uncertainties.
Let me also make a couple of points here. The first is to make it clear that we in the NWC lay no claims on the monopoly of wisdom. We are open to suggestions; we are open to informed views of our members. A political party benefits from the wisdom of its members, no matter how lowly they might be in the hierarchy of the party. I wish to encourage our members to continue to make valuable contributions to how our party is run and how best it can be run for our greater success.
My second point is party discipline. A political party, such as APC, at the heart of national development, must be exemplary in discipline and fidelity to its own core values. Our party constitution has enough provisions to attend to grievances by aggrieved members. We wish to encourage our members to take advantage of those channels and refrain from using the media to fuel minor personal grievances in an attempt to get their own pound of flesh. We will firmly and fairly enforce discipline among our members under any and all circumstances.
My third point is to draw your attention to the fact that an election season is a difficult and challenging time for an incumbent government. It is the time that strenuous attempts are made to rubbish it. Half-truths, outright lies and deliberate misinformation are the well-known weapons of attack against the incumbent government. You do not need to hear from me that the Buhari administration is the sole subject of vilification in and outside the media. Some of the criticisms and lies are so unkind as to create the impression that this administration has done nothing positive for the country in its seven years in office.
Their sinister objective is to portray the party and the government it birthed as a failure and, therefore, cannot be trusted to birth a competent successor administration. We must appreciate the depth of public feelings over the economic and the security challenges facing the administration and the country. They were part of the challenges that motivated the president to run for public office. That they remain critical challenges is in the nature of human progress. Human problems and challenges are not solved with the magic wand. Their solutions must follow slow processes.
Well, as they say, all is fair in war. The facts are there but when political parties choose to fight dirty and throw mud in every direction, they do not care for facts because lies are easy to be invented and are, by their nature, sweet. As members of the party, we have a duty to defend the sterling records of the government it birthed. We should not shy away from this. Politics is a competitive game. By its nature, it can be rough. Let the others play it rough but we will play it as statesmen and women. We must continue to match their lies with truth and verifiable facts about the administration.
Mr President, my distinguished colleagues, a new APC administration succeeding this APC administration is the huge challenge facing us. It is a task God has thrust upon us. It is a task we must successfully carry out. We promise you here and now that we shall deliver. We are the winning team but we are only the team leaders. Let the clarion call go forth from this place that our party expects all its leaders and members to be fully united in the task of winning the next general elections. We must individually and collectively do whatever it takes and whatever is required of us; we must give our sweat, if need be, to achieve our common objective. May God help us!!!
Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your kind attention.