The agitation of the zone fits in with the party’s constitution and tradition that a national officer who does not complete his term of office should be replaced by someone from his or her zone. Senator Abdullahi Adamu the immediate last chairman of the APC who resigned is from the North Central and hence the agitation from his zone for Ganduje to quit.
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and not surprisingly, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje has found himself in the same circumstances that nearly all his predecessors in the office of national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC found themselves at one time or the other.
Indeed, with the notable exception of Chief Bisi Akande, who served as interim national chairman of the APC after the merger of the component parties, almost all his successors were forced out of office unceremoniously.
However, for Dr Ganduje who was appointed national chairman at the instance of President Bola Tinubu just less than a year ago, it is surprising that his time of distress is coming so early.
What started with reports of plots by the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP administration in Kano to entrap Dr Ganduje with all sorts of political and criminal webs have now fully escalated to a nationwide agitation from even members of the APC directed against Dr Ganduje.
The alleged moves by the NNPP were initially believed to be part of a script by the Kano State government to seek its pound of flesh from Ganduje over his past vitriolic against Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso.
Handy to the NNPP in this regard was the unsettled controversy over Ganduje’s role in the dollar bribe videos. To sufficiently embarrass Ganduje, the NNPP-controlled Kano State government dug up the case and recommenced the prosecution of Ganduje on the issue.
Meanwhile, the attack from the Kano State Government was followed by the suspension of the APC national chairman by party members who portrayed themselves as ward executives from his Ganduje Ward in Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area of Kano State.
The circus in Kano State has seen at least three different factions of the APC Ganduje ward executive emerge taking a decision for or against the national chairman.
What has surprised many is that the appointor of the national chairman, that is President Tinubu has surprisingly not intervened to stop the insurrection against his appointee.
Not surprisingly, the president’s silence has fanned conspiracy theories as to a quiet plot to sacrifice Ganduje for the purpose of strengthening the APC and the president’s prospects in the North ahead of 2027.
The alleged silence of the president, it is speculated, may be part of the response to oppositionists scheming to weaken the president and the APC in the North.
Indeed, central to the plot by the opposition to neutralize Tinubu and the APC in the North is Kwankwanso who is presently the Lord Emperor of Kano politics.
This correspondent is aware of talks by oppositionists to realign and confront the APC in 2027. Kwakwanso, according to multiple sources is central to the plans given his key role in the politics of the North’s most populated state.
Though it has yet to be established, it is believed that the APC and the Tinubu camp are conscious of that and may also be working to neutralize the plot of the opposition.
As nearly everyone knows, Kwakwanso cannot re-enter the APC with Ganduje remaining as national chairman of the party.
It is no surprise that conspiracy theorists are now purveying the idea that the problems Ganduje is having in Kano are part of a secret plot with the long-shot view of consolidating the fortunes of the APC in the north.
Indeed, not surprisingly, the attacks against Ganduje have also spread from outside Kano to other parts of the country with North-Central APC stakeholders particularly turning up the heat against Ganduje.
The region is now demanding that the office of national chairman which was gifted by Tinubu to Ganduje who is from the North West should be returned to the North Central.
The agitation of the zone fits in with the party’s constitution and tradition that a national officer who does not complete his term of office should be replaced by someone from his or her zone. Senator Abdullahi Adamu the immediate last chairman of the APC who resigned is from the North Central and hence the agitation from his zone for Ganduje to quit.
The controversy that has enfolded Ganduje is one that ordinarily should have invited party elders as embodied in a Board of Trustees, BoT.
However, the APC which is now about 11 years old has yet to inaugurate a BoT, and as such has deprived itself of the counsel and nudges that ordinarily should have come from party elders.
During the Muhammadu Buhari regime plans to inaugurate the BoT were frustrated over intrigues initially over the chairmanship of the body. It was alleged that the Turks in the Buhari presidency did not want either of the two foremost eligible persons at that time -Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar – to be chairman of the body.
So, for all of the Buhari presidency, there was no BoT of the APC, even after Atiku returned to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
It is as such remarkable that with the APC national chairman increasingly being caught up in one controversy or the other that there is no mature counsel coming out to provide guidance.