APC Crisis: Buhari's Failure Infectious - HURIWA

 

The civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has lambasted President Muhammadu Buhari over his inability to show leadership in his party.

 

HURIWA was reacting to the crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress and said it is evidence of the inept misgovernment of Buhari's government in the last seven years.

 

HURIWA, in a statement on Friday by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the power tussle shaking the boat of APC whose leader is said to be the President has shown that the APC government cannot competently run the affairs of the country going forward.

 

The group pointed out that the President and APC governors run the affairs of the party like headmasters, with no regard for constitutional and legal provisions by the Independent National Electoral Commission, thus the many woes confronting the party.

 

Recall that we had reported that the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, said the President ordered the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee to remove Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State as Chairman and replace him with his Niger State counterpart, Abubakar Bello.

 

But INEC rejected a letter inviting it to an emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee of the governing party where Bello’s chairmanship, among other things, is to be ratified.

 

The commission drew the attention of CECPC to the fact that the letter of invitation was not signed by the National Chairman and National Secretary of the CECPC, Buni and Dr John Akpanudoedehe, respectively.

 

It said this was contrary to the provision of Article 1.1.3 of the Commission’s Regulations and Guidelines for Political Party Operations (2018).

 

Also, the APC, due to maladministration is currently battling no fewer than 208 court cases with some of them challenging the leadership of the party in various states and the legitimacy of the caretaker committee appointed by the President at a meeting on June 25, 2020 after the dissolution of the national leadership led by Adams Oshiomhole.

 

The party has battled many crises since the Buni committee took over, threatening its March 26 planned convention of the party hurriedly put together in 2017 to oust then President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party.

 

Commenting on the commotion rocking the APC, HURIWA faulted the appointment of Buni as caretaker chairman in the first instance and the subsequent appointment of Bello, noting that it is illegal for an elected governor to hold a very top position in any political party.

 

The statement was titled, ‘Like APC, Like Nigeria, Buhari’s maladministration infectious –HURIWA’.

 

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “How on earth will a governor who is elected for four years on full-time job for a specific state government and governance territory be clothed with the extrajudicial executive office of the national chairman of a national political party for years and the Independent National Electoral Commission looks on as if the commission is not to be concerned about the ethical and constitutional wellbeing of political parties given all the constitutional guidelines made on how parties should be administered transparently?