On August 14, 2018, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, rolled out new guidelines for the party’s primary elections during a meeting of stakeholders. The meeting was held at the party’s secretariat in Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos.

Instead of wide acceptance as earlier expected, the guidelines attracted fear and concerns in some quarters, that the much-anticipated endorsement of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for a second term ticket may face huge challenges.

Since he became governor of Lagos, Tinubu has maintained a firm grip on the political structure of the state. From the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) to the Action Congress (AC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and now, the

APC, he has always had his way.

In 2011, Tinubu’s relationship with his godson and successor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), almost turned awry. It was at a similar stakeholders’ meeting like the recent one that matters were resolved and support for Fashola’s re-election was announced.

Our sources who attended the meeting told Daily Trust on Sunday that against the expectation that the former governor would use the occasion to declare support for Ambode’s second term bid, the matter was not even mentioned throughout the deliberation.

Another stakeholder who attended the meeting said, “We even became more worried when all that was discussed was ‘direct primary’, against the ‘delegate system’ we have been used to in primary elections. We hope this would not affect the governor’s chances if a primary is called.”

Of greater worry to the party stakeholders were Tinubu’s pronouncement that nobody would secure an automatic ticket any longer. They insisted that notwithstanding Tinubu’s claim that the party is democratic and is embracing an open selection process, it remains an open secret that whosoever enjoys his blessing has greater chances of winning.

There have been speculations in recent times that certain forces who are not happy with Governor Ambode for sidelining them in the scheme of things have been mounting pressure on Tinubu to drop his support for him and allow a free contest during the party’s primary election. The position taken by Tinubu appears to further strengthen that claim.

Fuad Oki, a factional chairman of the APC in the state, was among the first people to raise the alarm that Ambode’s chances to return might be endangered.

Less than 24 hours after he was sworn into office following a parallel congress conducted by his faction, Oki told journalists during an interaction in Lagos that Ambode had been boxed to a tight corner. He said certain forces were holding him hostage, and except he re-negotiated his terms of support with them, he might be frustrated.

Not many took Oki seriously at that time since he was known to belong to another caucus of the party, different from that of Tinubu/Ambode. However, a look at how events have unfolded since the last local government election in the state seems to be solidifying Oki’s red flag.

Keen watchers of events were quick to point to other developments that unfolded afterwards. One of the most-talked-about was the signing of the state budget. As is the tradition, after the budget proposal has been passed, the speaker, alongside other lawmakers, as well as the governor and his executive members, would sit together and witness the budget proposal being signed into law. The situation was, however, different this year when, in the last minute, the governor called off the earlier scheduled date for signing the budget into law. He was later said to have signed it on a day when the speaker and other legislators could not witness it.

Thereafter, it was reported that different forces within and outside the party mounted pressure on Tinubu to withdraw his support for the governor. And until the recent stakeholders’ meeting, not many could say what was actually in the offing.

A chieftain of the party, Hon. Razak Muse, however, said that beyond the political anxiety in some quarters, the idea of direct primary is a good development. According to Muse, direct primary truly enhances democracy as that would bring about members’ participation in determining those who would represent the party at general elections. He, however, admonished party leaders to ensure that the system is not hijacked as that may create greater problems than the delegate system.

But for Joe Igbokwe, the spokesman of the APC in Lagos State, having experimented with direct primary in Osun State, the party has come to the conclusion that “it is cheaper and nobody needs to camp delegates in hotels and be paying them.” He added that since the national leader of the party had spoken on the matter, there is no going back on its implementation.

He declined to speak on the chances of Governor Ambode in the face of direct primary.

For Ambode’s loyalists, however, there are no reasons to panic. In a statement issued and signed by the governor’s chief press secretary, Habib Aruna hours after the stakeholders’ meeting, Ambode was quoted as saying: “There is no better time to appreciate our national leader (Tinubu) than now. What we have just witnessed is the beginning of a revolution about deepening democracy in Nigeria. People might not understand what is going on, but we are giving power to the people, and it is starting from the APC.”

•Excerpted from a Daily Trust report

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