The Coalition of Progressive Women in Nigeria (CPWN) has called on the ruling All Progressives Congress to reschedule its proposed February 26th national convention over alleged plots by some governors to hijack the exercise.

The APC women also urged its Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) to instead focus on uniting aggrieved faithful.

The coalition made this known today at a press conference in Abuja ahead of the APC’s planned convention.

In her remarks, the convener, Hon. Cecilia Ikechukwu noted that the “postponement would allow for party members to further air their grievances while exploring the path of reconciliation”.

Ms Ikechukwu further raised the alarm over the overbearing influence of some governors running the affairs of the party and putting their interests first.

She specifically urged the party’s National Executive Council to call Governor Nasir El-Rufai, Governor Simon Lalong and Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu to order.

The group, therefore, warned the three governors that any attempt to proceed with the convention will be resisted by women both in the country and abroad.

The group vowed to mobilise and take steps to prove to them that they can be demystified by party members.

They, however, urged President Muhammadu Buhari, other APC state governors and all leaders of the party to stand up to save the party before it self destructs in the hands of these emperor governors.

Read the full statement below:

Gentlemen of the press, the Coalition of Progressive Women in Nigeria is a pressure group within the All Progressive Congress (APC). It should be noted that our concept of a pressure group is in the sense of playing that motherly role women are imbued with to keep societies stable. We believe that women can ensure stability when they play their role in being peacemakers.

These role expectations notwithstanding, we have largely refrained from pitching into the challenges that beset our party, the APC, in recent months. As it is well known, these challenges might have been worse than what we currently have had the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) not done a great job of dousing tension and reconciling brothers whose differences boiled over in form of what some people refer to as internal party crisis.

We had thought that the Committee would continue to expand its peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts but were rudely shocked when the elective national convention was announced on February 26, 2022. This development is disconcerting for the very reason that it has further frayed already strained intra-party relations.

The logical thing would have been to as much as was possible try to further reconcile the various state factions of the APC. That way, whoever emerges as a candidate for any position will enjoy widespread support going into the 2023 General Elections. But pressing ahead with the National Convention without first putting the house in order is calling for disaster. We have seen it happen in other political parties in the past whereby those who would be dissatisfied with the outcome of a major incident like the National Convention will end up defecting to another political party.

No right-thinking politician will assert that it is a desirable thing to lose members, strategic and high worth members, in an election year, which is the bleak prospect that our party now faces unless something drastic is done to correct the error of fixing a date for the national convention without first addressing underlying issues that threaten the wellbeing of the party.

Consequently, the Coalition of Progressive Women in Nigeria, as concerned mothers, hereby appeals to the National Executive Council (NEC) for the postponement of the APC’s February 26th National Convention until a later date when the party would have made further progress in unifying its members. We firmly believe that the postponement would allow for party members to further air their grievances while exploring the path of reconciliation.

It is our fervent prayer that this appeal does not fall on deaf ears because the consequences could be grievous. We would not like for the appeal to take on the tone of an unheeded warning in the future when irreparable damage would have been done to the party with attendant electoral losses.

In addition to rescheduling the National Convention to a more practical date, we implore the APC NEC to prevail on some of the party’s governors to curtail their excessive intrusion in the running of the affairs of the party. We will specifically ask that the NEC calls the trio of Kaduna State’s Governor Nasir El-Rufai, Plateau State’s Governor Simon Lalong and Kebbi State’s Abubakar Atiku Bagudu to order. It is callous for the likes of Nasir El- Rufai, Lalong and Bagudu to think that their words should be law and the interest of the party should no longer matter.

The overbearing way these people try to foist these personal ambitions and agendas on the party is largely responsible for where the APC has found itself today. Had their excesses been curtailed before they pushed the party into this mess, we would not have been trying to do damage control at a time when we should finalize our victory plan for the elections ahead.

We are therefore warning that we would hold El- Rufai, Lalong and Bagudu responsible for whatever ills the APC suffers should they go ahead with the convention and those aggrieved parties whose grievances have not been addressed decide to leave the party. We would then be compelled to prove to these overbearing governors the power of women as mobilizers as we will take steps to prove to them that they can be demystified by party members.

As women, we are saying that we cannot see danger and keep quiet. We cannot see the party digging its own grave and keeping quiet. We cannot know those acting against the interest of the party and shield them. President Muhammadu Buhari, other APC state Governors and all leaders of the party should stand up to save APC before it destructs at the hands of these emperor governors.

The only way forward is to reschedule the national convention from February 26, 2022 date.

Thank you.

By Mark Okeke

The ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) finally scheduled its national convention for February 28. Sadly, rather than being a thing of joy the date now has all the markings of a dark cloud hanging ominously over the ruling party, which is now on the threshold of going the way of the former ruling party, the People Democratic Party.

One pertinent question to ask is how the APC got to this point. A background to this inquiry is necessary. We seem to have all forgotten that the impetus for the formation of the APC, in addition to its war cry of wanting to salvage the country, was that of creating a political party that thrives on internal democracy and devoid of the internal wrangling that sounded the death knell for political parties in Nigeria.

The dark cloud above the APC could perhaps have been prevented from gathering has the party curtailed the excesses of certain individuals who reckoned that they owned the party more than others. The most overbearing in this category are certain governors from the northern part of the country who practically passed across the vibes that what other party members and leaders want do not matter. It was their own way or the highway.

Those who had argued against a February national convention for the APC had put forward their arguments. Such people posited that the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) has done such a good job that it should have gotten an additional lease of life to further actualize its mandate of smoothening relationships within the party. The APC was riddled with widespread crises and infighting before the Committee came on board.

While the Committee had done much to repair relationships and reconciled aggrieved factions at state level, some states remained in crises that will likely amplify in the run-up to the convention, which would then spell doom for the party.

There was also the argument that it would have been globally consistent to defer the national convention such that it holds at the same time with the convention to select the APC presidential flagbearer for the 2023 elections. Those that pushed this position reasoned that it would allow more time for further reconciliation.

But the hardliners that have somehow appropriated the party to themselves will have none of these arguments. They practically passed it as a decree that the elective convention must hold in February.

Unfortunately, with the overbearing disposition of these democratic dictators, that which should have been forgotten has now been named. Righteously disgruntled members are now beginning to discuss in terms of the constituent blocs that were cobbled together to from the APC – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP – faction of the People’s Democratic Party.

The danger from this development is that it is setting the tone for those aggrieved by the high handedness of some APC governors to contemplate pulling out their blocs and reverting to a semblance of pre-merger days or to go find expression in other political parties.

If those who think they have pulled a coup by fixing and announcing a date for the national convention feel the limited protestation that greeted the development is a good sign, then they have major surprises coming for them. The seeming silence should rather be construed from perspective of being ominous. These people that are unhappy at being muscled are keeping silent apparently because they have their own game plan, a fallback position that will ensure they can make the people they perceive as usurper to pay steep prices at the polls come the 2023 General Elections. And one way of giving a bloody nose is for them to pursue courses that will ultimately cause implosion in the APC.

For APC’s death not to be near and being of its own doing, genuine stakeholders must step forward to see if there are remedial steps that would salvage the party. There is an urgency to find solutions and expose those that are out to kill the party. Interestingly, these would be assassins and undertakers of the APC are neither PDP nor any opposition. The situation is that the APC is about to consume the APC.

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Stakeholders must confront the stark fact that these people currently dictating for the party do not have a single strand of the APC’s interest at heart. No. They are out for their own interests, which would only make February more brutal for the APC. The fallout will not be contained within the APC as there would be a spillover that will make Nigerians call for some people’s head. There will be reckoning. These same characters behind the APC debacle are those that connived with Bill Gates to keep Nigerians perpetually hungry in the wake of global coronavirus outbreak. By seizing the soul of the APC, they invariably target pocketing Nigeria and owning its citizens. People will revolt against this.

If the new self-appointed owners of the APC can still activate their capacity to listen, then they should hear this. Nobody wants a Convention in February. More than half of APC members have issues to resolve. Yet these lords want to deceive party members and Nigerians that a crisis-free convention is possible in February without making visible efforts to build consensus and secure the buy-in of party members.

As the party is made to press ahead with the ill-advised February 28 national convention date against reason and in spite of the dark cloud that hovers above it, one is compelled to ask a profound question. Who bewitched the APC?

Okeke wrote this piece from Abakaliki.