The rift between the All Progressives Congress National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has continued unabated. BAYO AKINLOYE writes about the consequences of the crisis

The emergence of the All Progressives Congress has been described by many as an amalgam of strange bedfellows, politically and individually.

This, according to analysts, has become more pronounced since the APC won the March 28 presidential election making it the first opposition party to defeat a ruling one in the country.

From then, the members have been embroiled in one conflict or the other among themselves.

Of recent, two members of the top hierarchy of the party who have been at daggers drawn with each other are its National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki.

Tinubu, a former senator and two-time governor of Lagos State, is generally regarded as a political juggernaut that has in his vice grip the South-West geo-political zone of the country. He is also reputed for making strategic alliances with other geo-political zones in the land.

Saraki too, is not unknown in the country’s political terrain. A two-time governor of Kwara State and serving senator, he was bequeathed a political dynasty by his father, Dr. Olusola Saraki, the Senate Leader in the Second Republic. The Senate President, a former Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, is renowned for his political clout in Kwara. By constitutional recognition, he is the third most powerful person in Nigeria.

The conflict between Bukola Saraki and Bola Tinubu came into the open at the June 7 shadow election held by the APC which produced Ahmad Lawan as the ruling party’s preferred candidate for the position of senate president. The shadow election which was favoured by Tinubu and Lawan’s supporters was boycotted by Saraki and his group. On June 9, sensing trouble, the APC called a meeting involving its leaders and lawmakers before the inauguration of the Senate. Tinubu along with other party chieftains were in attendance and President Muhammadu Buhari was on his way when news filtered in that the Senate had already been inaugurated with Saraki sworn in as the Senate President.

Political analysts posited that the preferred candidate for that position had the backing of Buhari and Tinubu and that Saraki’s flouting of the party’s choice was a personal affront against the former Lagos governor and the president.

The Senate President was said to have added insult to injury when he flagrantly dismissed the APC’s preferred candidates to occupy the upper chamber’s position of principal officers. From that moment onward, observers noted, a battle line had been drawn between him and Tinubu, who had preferred a different set of APC lawmakers to emerge as principal officers.

On Sunday, October 12, a statement attributed to Tinubu further revealed the lingering crisis between the former governors, now rocking the APC.

In that statement, Tinubu condemned Saraki as being ill-disciplined and disloyal. This followed a newspaper report that the two of them were conspiring to undermine President Muhammadu Buhari’s government as regards appointment of ministerial nominees.

“The idea of an alleged conspiracy between Tinubu and Saraki against the President is a lie. Tinubu is committed to the APC vision and the Nigeria project. The way Senator Saraki captured his current seat travestied party discipline. It was a crass act of disloyalty showing that Saraki may have joined the APC on paper but has remained true to the malpractices and wrong aims of the reactionary PDP in his soul.

“If this nation is to have more than a fleeting chance of escaping the quagmire into which years of PDP misrule have taken us, we cannot allow these regressive elements to deploy their cunning tricks to divide and pit progressives against progressives. There has been no substantive communication between Asiwaju and Saraki since the latter decided to foul the integrity of the Senate and the party,” Tinubu’s media aide, Sunday Dare, had said.

According to Tinubu, some “PDP mercenary allies” are bent on fragmenting the true core of the APC so that they may scuttle the “Buhari reform programme and hope to delude the APC into attacking itself.” By so doing, he suggested that people like Saraki believe they can regain through “stealth,” the reins of government.

In response to the accusations levelled against him that Sunday, the Senate President while saying he would not join issues with Tinubu debunked the claim that he is not loyal to the APC cause.

“I know that most Nigerians are aware that there has been no meeting or communication between me and Asiwaju Tinubu since I was elected Senate President. Therefore, I do not see any basis for a newspaper to report that we are both plotting to oppose the President. Let me state clearly that I remain a committed member of the APC and will do all in my powers to ensure the party fulfils its promises to bring positive changes into the country.

“Since my election as Senate President, my focus and efforts have been devoted to doing the job that I was elected to do by my constituents and my colleagues in the Senate. Twice, my colleagues have confirmed their support for me as the primus inter pares in the Senate,” Saraki had said.

But political watchers have expressed misgivings that the showdown could prove damaging to everyone, including the principal actors.

A former National Publicity Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Anthony Sani, told SUNDAY PUNCHthat the rift between the two APC chieftains is insidious.

“I believe both the APC leader Tinubu and the Senate President Bukola Saraki know that the lingering silent face-off between them is not in the interest of anyone, including themselves, that of the democracy and for the nation as a whole,” Sani said.

In August it appeared that the clash of egos and wills rocking the APC would soon be over when Saraki, following the Senate leadership election on June 9 and subsequent appointment of principal officers, reportedly sent emissaries to meet with Tinubu in Lagos.

SUNDAY PUNCH had reported that the Senate President made efforts to meet and appeal to Tinubu to sheathe his sword. According to the report, Saraki’s olive branch to Tinubu might mark a turning point in the crisis as the Senate President, before now, had insisted that he would not ‘beg’ the APC leader.

“It is a surprise that he is reaching out to Tinubu. Saraki has no respect for Tinubu. He is contemptuous of him. During meetings he refers to him contemptuously as ‘Bola’. In fact, there was a time that Tinubu wanted to explain a point to him and he shut him up,” a party source had said.

Prior to the reported attempts by some emissaries to resolve the crisis, there was a sign that the infighting might last longer than envisaged by Saraki.

On June 10, when he administered oath of office and allegiance on Ahmad Lawan and 27 other APC senators who were absent at the formal inauguration of the Eighth Senate, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the APC leader’s wife, refused to shake hands with him.

By protocol, each of the newly sworn-in senators was expected, after taking the oaths, to present a copy of their certificate to the Senate President and in turn, shake hands with him. The procedure was duly followed by others except Senator Tinubu, who refused to shake hands with Saraki, but merely showed him her certificate.

The crisis between the two APC chieftains worsened in July when Senator Joseph Waku alleged that Tinubu masterminded a petition that caused the wife of the Senate President, Toyin Saraki, to be invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Waku, an APC member, in a statement claimed that his findings showed that Tinubu personally gave the petition to Lamorde under the guise that he was submitting it on behalf of the APC leadership to punish Saraki for working against the party’s leadership on the choice of National Assembly leaders.

“I have chosen to speak out on this issue and make my findings on this issue known to the public. After days of painstaking enquiries, I discovered that both Tinubu and Lamorde maintain a mutually beneficial relationship since the days of Lamorde as the EFCC Director of Operations and based in Lagos between 2003 and 2007, when Tinubu was equally the governor of Lagos.

“I also discovered from my findings in the EFCC that the so-called petition against Mrs. Saraki was personally given to Lamorde by Tinubu under the guise that he was submitting the petition on behalf of the APC leadership to punish Saraki for working against the party’s leadership on the choice of National Assembly leaders. This was followed by a promise to help secure a second term for Lamorde as EFCC chairman,” he had said.

By September, many political analysts said the relationship between the two if any was headed for the rocks following the alleged barring of a lawmaker representing Ondo-Central senatorial district, Senator Tayo Alasoadura, from attending South-West caucus meetings.

Alasoadura’s sin was said to be that he worked against the interest of the party’s South-West leadership and for taking sides with Saraki in the election of principal officers in the upper chamber. He was also among the senators that followed Senate President to the Code of Conduct Tribunal, where he is facing charges of false declaration of assets.

According to a report by The PUNCH, when Tinubu convened a South-West meeting in Abuja during the height of the National Assembly crisis, Alasoadura came but was allegedly walked out of the meeting.

But two days after the incident, the Ondo State senator issued a statement, pledging his allegiance to the party and denying supporting Saraki. He said he was only working in the best interest of his constituents.

While Saraki might have decided not to respond to Tinubu’s scathing remarks against him, his supporters are not taking the matter lying low. A day after Tinubu’s unsparing statement, the Maja Progressives Union issued a statement to condemn the former Lagos governor’s criticism of the Senate President.

At a press conference in Ilorin, Kwara State capital, the MPU insisted that Saraki was “born into politics” and deserved respect from Tinubu.

“Tinubu fondly called the Lion of Bourdillon should not challenge Saraki over issues that bother on party loyalty. He is our political leader in Kwara. He is acceptable to us all. But Tinubu cannot call himself the leader of the Yoruba today. We went into all these to show the world that Saraki is always committed to whatever course he lays his hand on, including the APC. The party was not solely formed by Tinubu but by many people from different ideological backgrounds.

“We have observed that Tinubu, unlike Awolowo, sees himself as a boss and not a leader. Even the great Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, played his political game as a leader and not a boss. This was the attribute the late biological father of the Senate President, Olusola Saraki, left for us in Kwara and that is what his son is building on. We urge Tinubu to follow suit,” the MPU spokesman, Kayode Yusuf, said.

While Sani said the crisis would be inimical for the country’s democratic process, Dr. Idowu Johnson of the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, insisted that heavens would not fall if Tinubu and Saraki did not bury the hatchet.

“The future of APC rests on cooperation among the aggrieved members to move Nigeria forward. If they fail to do so, heavens will not fall. The worst that can happen is for some of them to leave the party and a new set of people will emerge. Nigerians need a fresh breath of life and all politicians must cooperate to develop the country,” Johnson said.

In the view of Brig-Gen Ayodele Ojo (retd.), the power struggle between Saraki and Tinubu goes beyond the two individuals.

Ojo said, “I don’t think the issue should be reduced to a face-off between Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Bukola Saraki. I think it is a party affair. I also know that the APC has an internal mechanism to resolve such crises.”

Weighing on the matter, the Head of Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Professor Jonah Onuoha, noted it appeared in the beginning that Saraki was going to lose the supremacy battle to Tinubu.

Onuoha however stated that the Senate President has become a force to reckon with.

“The current crisis between Tinubu and Saraki is a battle for 2019 and it appears Saraki has come to stay. He is the only person well positioned in the Senate to carry both the APC lawmakers and the PDP lawmakers along. Any attempt by the APC to deal with him will backfire. They should carry him along and if they do otherwise and push him to the wall, he will jump ship and go back to the PDP.

“APC has more to gain, at least in the Senate, rallying behind Saraki than doing so for Tinubu. More so, it will be difficult to impeach Saraki as the Senate President. He has the PDP members on his side and some of the APC members also are on his side. In spite of his ongoing trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Saraki appears to be growing stronger,” he said.

With the majority of the Senate solidly behind Saraki and the party hierarchy leaning towards Tinubu, many are reaching the conclusion that the frosty relationship between the former and the latter seems to be a fight to the finish.