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ANPP: In Search of Its Lost Soul? By Hassan S. Indabawa
Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State confirmed in Kaduna Saturday, July 8 2006, his intention to seek a second term in the 2007 general elections that will usher in new or continuing political office holders at state and national levels. First elected governor of Kano state in 2003, Shekarau is constitutionally qualified to do another term of four years in the political arrangement which allows for a maximum of two terms of four years either way.
Shekarau who made his intention known during a Hausa program, “Hannu Da yawa” on Radio Nigeria Kaduna said he would like another four years effect from May 29, 2007 if it would please Kano state people to elect him come the important year.
His defeat of incumbent governor Rabiu Kwankwanso in 2003, was seen as a major gain for the All Nigeria people’s party (ANPP) whose presidential candidate, retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari, was credited for the rare feat. The party nearly overcame the incumbency factor in Katsina, Buhari’s home state. This, once more attested to the popularity of the ANPP or Buhari, but the ANPP lost its hitherto Gombe, Kogi, and Kwara states to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). On the whole, therefore, the ANPP, which Buhari personified, was more of a loser than a gainer. This was 2003.
By today, the party has lost more ground ever, having been depleted considerably by defection of many of its founding leaders and builders who have left for other political parties.
First, the defeat of ANPP’s Muhammed Lawal in Kwara State at the gubernatorial election in 2003 which was won by PDP’s Bukola was a fallout from Buhari’s failure to close ranks with influential members of the party, including Kwara politics strong man Olusola Saraki, who got his faithful into the PDP and consequently got his son Bukola elected governor. To justify his anti-ANPP action, Saraki had complained that Buhari was given to looking down on him, of not appreciating him for his contribution to the running of the ANPP whose flag Buhari was bearing.
And so ANPP lost Kwara state. For reasons not necessarily traceable to Buhari, ANPP lost the 2003 elections too in Gombe and Kogi state. Well-meaning members of the party must have wished that the party would reconsolidate and win back its old states and make successful inroad to other states in the years leading to 2007. The very opposite is the reality today, many of its important National and state leaders having walked out on the party.
Late last May, influential leader of the party Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, dumped it and headed for newly established Democratic Peoples Party (DPP). Bafarawa who was a big financier of ANPP also had the responsibility of leading the party as its national interim committee chairman in the run-up to the 2003 elections when disintegration first threatened the party. Bafarawa moved over to the DPP carrying with him many of his political associates, including the party’s factional chairman until recently, retired General Jeremiah Useni, and several other notable former ANPP proud card carrying members and leaders in their own rights, including Senators Sule Yari Gandi, Sa’idu Dansadau, Gbenga Aluko, Joseph Kennedy Waku, Khairat Abdulrazaq – Gwadabe, and so on.
These ones were in Abuja to show Nigerians where they now belong when on June 28, 2006 the DPP was formally launched as a political party, intending to field candidates in the coming general elections. Other notable former ANPP now in DPP who attended the DPP launch include former Rivers State Governor Chief Rufus Ada-George, former Kwara State Governor Alhaji Muhammed Lawal, in addition to Useni and Bafarawa; as well as notable figures such as Alhaji Badamasi Maccido, Umaru Dahiru, Lawani Shuaibu, and Musa Musawa.
While they lasted in the party, the duo of Bafarawa and Useni were not the best of friends with its embattled national chairman at the time, Don Etiebet. This was blamed for the instability in the party which broke into two eventually, one faction headed by Useni and the other by Etiebet. The Useni faction it was who left for the DPP. But rather than stay to consolidate his hold on ANPP, Etiebet also left, handing over the remains of ANPP, so to speak, to Borno State Governor, Alhaji Modu Sheriff, who is now the party’s interim national chairman.
The departure of major players from the ANPP, including Jigawa State Governor Saminu Turaki who joined the PDP in a noisy celebration in Dutse only days ago, Friday July 7, show how deeply divided against one another leading members of the party have been. The center, indeed, never really held. And, all has been in the full glare of the supposed watchful eyes of its national leader, Muhammadu Buhari . By virtue of being nominated, as the party’s presidential flag bearer in 2003, Buhari became the party’s national leader expected to work hand in hand with the national chairman in the best interest of not only the presidential hopeful but for all in the party seeking elections at all levels. Failing to become Nigeria’s president as he did, Buhari was expected to make himself relevant as potential president under the party, more so when he knew all the while that he would make a go at the presidency again in 2007 under the same ANPP. But, alas, he has looked the other way instead, allowing problems within the party to fester, disappointing many in the party, including the ANPP governors who, because they could not find a father in him, lost hope and are now minding their own businesses except one, so it seems, namely Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau.
It is not as if all is well in Kano State either. Not with the party. Not with the government. This is the crux of the matter.
Widely acclaimed honest leader, Shekarau, has party members in his government who do not share his passion for good governance. He cannot solely fight these men who reason that governance is a piece of cake, which they have all the rights to share. People such as these kinds give the Shekarau government a bad name. Self-centeredness similarly reigns within the state ANPP. The struggle for supremacy within its ranks for completely personal aggrandizement is tearing the party apart.
Buhari has been reported as saying that he is keeping off boiling ANPP in Kano because he believed Kano people knew enough about politics not to need his counsel. Which father watches on as his children are pulling one another apart because he sees the children as being capable of deciding the right way to live together? Which father?
Our respected statesman is seeking to lead Nigeria to the Promised Land. His party ought to be the place to start from. And Kano should be his main concern – before it becomes too late.
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