FEATURED: APC: The battle is set

The unveiling of the APC as the special purpose vehicle with which the country’s major opposition parties hope to contest the political space with the dominant Peoples Democratic Party, will redefine the political landscape.

One forced himself to power with a battery of armoured tanks on his flanks. The other, with sheer guts has mustered political power in the country’s Southwest in a way that has not been seen since the second republic.

So it was not surprising that the coming together of the two would be depicted in military fashion. The All Progressive Congress, APC with General Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the helm has the same acronym as the Armoured Personnel Carrier, APC the revolutionary military vehicle that was launched in the later days of the First World War to ferry troops into the heat of battle.

Before the advent of the APC, field commanders using armoured tanks to break through enemy lines were handicapped by their inability to hold grounds pierced by the tanks as the infantry troops were still susceptible to small arms fire and anti-personnel mines. And so was born the APC, the special purpose vehicle to convey troops to the heat of battle.

Buhari, Tinubu and their allies in the ranks of the opposition perhaps had the same frame of mind in the formation of the APC, which they expect to use as the special purpose vehicle to wrest power from the dominant Peoples Democratic Party, PDP at the centre in 2015.

The four parties that have come together to form the APC are the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP and the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA. The quartet is expected to pack as sufficient armour as a military APC to contest political power with the PDP.

The fusion of the four parties which is yet to be formally endorsed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC is the first phase of the battle of wits that has been going on between the PDP and the opposition ahead of the 2015 election.

All the parties involved in the merger were united by the admission of one fact – that for all their individual efforts, that they could not overcome the PDP except they came together.

Buhari who has led the fight against the PDP since 2003, even where his mass appeal has remained unshaken, however, saw the ANPP to which he belonged lose states from nine to five before he left the party at the beginning of the decade to form the CPC.

Tinubu’s ACN has had mixed fortunes. From five states initially won by its progenitor, that is the Alliance for Democracy, AD it nosedived to having only one state before coming back forcefully to win six states presently.

Even with the six states in its kitty, the ACN was bound to remain a regional party with influence limited to the west where it controls five of the six states in the region. The only other state in its kitty is Edo State whose governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole remains a doubtable ingredient in the Tinubu game plan.

The other party involved, APGA entered the merger on the wings of an internecine warfare between two major factions of the party.

While the faction aligned to Chief Victor Umeh, the embattled national chairman of the party supported the merger, that aligned to Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State was hostile to the arrangement. It was not surprising that the Obi faction was against the merger given whispers that the governor could decamp to the PDP at the end of his term.

The party’s other governor, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has proved supportive of the merger and was present at the meeting of ten governors of the parties involved in the merger last Tuesday in Lagos.

APC unveiled
A day after the meeting in Lagos, the APC was formally unveiled at a press briefing in the Abuja residence of Chief Tom Ikimi, who had earlier been designated to lead the merger committee of the ACN.

The unveiling of the identity of the new party was itself reflective of the military strategy of surprise.

Few weeks ago, Buhari had told the nation that the new mega party would emerge by the middle of the year. So it was a surprising development when the announcement was made on Wednesday that the new party was taking shape with plans to formalize the merger with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.