2023: Plots to keep power in North’ll backfire – APC chief

From Ogundele Olanrewaju

A stalwart of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bauchi State, Alhaji Alhasan Farouk, has said that the on-going plot by some members of the national leadership of the party to retain power in the North in 2023 could implode the party.

Farouk, who is a former National Coordinator of the Arewa Political Forum of Nigeria, said: “Unless drastic interventions are made, next year’s general election may prove the final straw for Nigeria’s 62-year-old experiment as a highly combustible union of disparate ethnic groups each with an unyielding aspiration to determine its own destiny and a shared suspicion of a nursed domination agenda.”

He said President Muhammadu Buhari from the North West, as incumbent, has received widespread criticism from several segments of the society for what has been termed a lopsided appointment policy in Nigeria’s security architecture and several MDAs, where the North has been unduly favoured.

“With the recent spate of insecurity, banditry, herder- farmer violence, IPOB disruptions and separatist group agitations in the South-West, it is apparent that the nation has never been more divided. The fallout of the recent melee in Sokoto following the killing of Deborah Samuel, where several Igbo traders and other Southerners were harassed as young residents demanded the release of those who perpetrated the killing of the young student, is a clear instance of the delicate religious and ethnic balancing act that needs to be upheld in Nigeria.

“With a fractious polity where ethnic and religious strife has seen sectional violence come to the fore in the North Central, South East, South West, the South is eager to stake a claim to the presidency to soothe frayed nerves across the country.

Nigeria’s fragile unity is indeed at stake,” he said. He said the dramatic, but dangerous tussle is best observed in the APC. “Formed in 2014 as an alliance between the North and South to oust the PDP that had held power for 16 years prior, President Buhari emerged as its flag bearer as the representative of the North and with a promise to surrender power to the South in a high-stake power sharing formula designed to promote inclusion and a sense of belonging, an antidote to the inflammable marriage between the ethnic groups.