Buhari Warns APC May Crash Like PDP If Crisis Not Addressed Before March 26 Convention

President Muhammadu Buhari, on Saturday, warned the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that the party may go down like the “once-powerful” Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) if the crisis bedeviling it is not brought under control.

Buhari, who is currently on sick leave in the United Kingdom, issued the warning after the party was plunged into a fresh crisis currently posing a serious threat to its March 26 national convention.

The ruling party has been a subject of mockery by the opposition over its inability to hold the convention to usher in a new National Working Committee that will takeover from the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led interim leadership of the party.

The crisis deepened last week as an attempt to remove Buni as the party’s caretaker chairman to avoid any obstacle to the March 26 convention hit a brick wall.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had rejected a letter written to it by the party’s acting caretaker chairman, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello, while affirming that Buni who is currently in the UAE on medical vacation is the only recognised caretaker chairman of the embattled party.

President Buhari, in a statement signed by him on Saturday, urged the party to address the leadership crisis facing it before March 26.

The president, who reportedly met some APC leaders in London over the crisis on Friday, said the APC must avoid past mistakes of the opposition PDP which he said has not only become “enfeebled and adrift”, but has remained a failure as an opposition party since it lost power in 2015.

“I am asking the leaders and the entire membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to desist from name-calling and backstabbing, ahead of the March 26 Convention.

“We must look at the once-powerful, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is now enfeebled and adrift, and learn lessons from their disunity, mismanagement and corruption. They failed in 16 years in power and remain a failure as opposition.

“Yes, we are entitled to our own share of dissent and intra-party discord. These are common in all parties, left and right all over the world.But parties splintered by competing egos destine themselves to the worst possible fate,” he said.

President Buhari said rather than fight each other, the APC leaders and those with ambitions should concern themselves with “the issues that matter” as the country prepares for the 2023 presidential election.

He added, “The APC started out with a confidence of victory and today enjoys that confidence in nearly two-thirds of our 36 states.

“Yet this is a party that has been in existence barely for eight years, becoming the dominant party because we have thrown open our doors to defectors from other parties, big and small.

“What has also made our success possible is that we didn’t start on the note of arrogance of power, nor do we see government as a vehicle for self-aggrandizement, to be held at all costs.

“Instead we see it as a vehicle to bring development to all without discrimination —political, ethnic or regional — to our dear country.

“We are proud of the fact that in its short period of existence, the APC has won two general elections decisively, and despite losing a few states in 2019, we have steadfastly expanded its pan-Nigerian outlook with significant defections of the opposition Governors and parliamentarians into our fold.

“Given all that is at a stake, we can expect contests into offices as we are now faced with to be heated, although candidates and their promoters for party offices are not so much debating policy differences but differences of management, personality, character, and suitability for the most important leadership roles in our country and therefore the continent.

“We must never allow ourselves to be distracted. We exist to serve the people of Nigeria, and to continue to deliver the dividends of democracy to them. That is all that ultimately matters.

“And we must all remain steadfast and maintain unity if our great Party is to continue in the path of victory and its dominance at all levels throughout the country.”