Crossing lines.

If the leader limps, all others start limping too. Kenyan proverb.

People cross lines when they engage in questionable behaviour, and have others who judge them and evaluate what is acceptable conduct, and what is not. The trick is to establish where lines start and end, as well as credibility of those who judge if lines have been crossed and what, if any, should be the penalty for the action. In the last few days, developments in the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) with uncrowned party leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and party National Chairman, Chief John  Oyegun at the center suggest that many lines have been crossed. It is obvious that these are not inadvertent or casual transgressions that can be ignored or remedied by un-crossing lines. These are deep raptures in critical relations that hint at a long, festering malaise in a party that had lived pretty much on the disposition of a few powerful centers of power and influence that included the awesome profile of the Asiwaju. By any stretch of imagination, this major dip in the fortunes of the APC will not evaporate without taking major casualties. The size of the damage will be contingent on the perceptions and responses of dominant interests in the party.

 It will be uncharitable to assume that Asiwaju Tinubu did not contemplate the weight and the consequences of his public assaults on the party national chairman over the Ondo primaries. Indeed it is certain that his choice of location, style, weaponry and tactics were to raise the stakes so high that only the maximum impact will be the outcome, which is the humiliation and instant end to the elderly Oyegun's political career. If the gambit works, Oyegun's tenuous leadership role in the party is all but over. If it fails to remove a chairman who he pronounced thoroughly unfit to hold that position, Asiwaju's future in the party will be doubtful, and his status, if he remains, severely diminished. There is a third option, of course. This is the possibility that other powerful interests such as President Buhari and Vice Presidents Osinbajo and Atiku Abubakar and an assortment of others who have hovered around the party without defined roles, or even a few leaders in the legislature and government who will not be popping the champagne over this fiasco weigh in and mediate this damaging development. The problem here is that most of those with enough influence to mediate are likely to evaluate any roles purely on the basis of its utility to their own interests in the context of their relationships with Asiwaju and Oyegun. If reports in some media are to be believed, Atiku appears to have pitched his tent with Tinubu. Many interests in this fight will revisit drawing boards and settled perceptions over alliances, ambitions, friends and enemies. In this fight there are no neutrals.

There will be a few who will rue the circumstances of a ruling party that has been unable to grow beyond electoral victory and become a functional and critical institutional asset for good governance. Its traducers will even say it appeared to have served its purpose as a vehicle for the election of the government, and was then abandoned as spoils for a handful of powerful and well-connected people with continuing interests in building and expanding political fortresses. On many occassions, its nose was bloodied in vicious battles and unwholesome manouvers for positions. Every time it lost the power to influence the outcomes of battles for positions or basic policy, its stature and clout shrank. It has had no Board of Trustees or its equivalent, a vital requirement for a new party of old interests and ambitions blessed with men and women with capacities to provide guidance and mediate conflicts. Its key organs operate  either with the efficiency of the our DISCOS, or have quarrelled away their powers as they responded to conflicting stimuli of powerful party members.

The Ondo primaries controversy is symptomatic of deep-seated flaws that have been a feature of the party. Over-bearing influence of "chieftains" have frustrated the growth of party autonomy and operational efficiency. In many previous elections since 2015,the allegations of subversion of democratic values and practices, financial inducements, tampering with basic processes and requirements that give credibility and integrity of intra-party democracy which Tinubu now levels directly against Oyegun have been made by many, including other "chieftains" who lost out in the scramble. How does one make sense of a reported primaries appeals committee  made up of hand-picked persons from one chieftain with little links to the party; or a marathon meeting of the National Working Committee(NWC)of the party whose decisions are now in dispute after being tricked to pray while Chief Oyegun quietly walks away to subvert popular will? If these questions suggest  gross ignorance or an over-indulgence to gossip, there are other questions. How much of his frustrations with the Ondo saga did Asiwaju share with President Buhari before he went public with them? Why is the world hearing of grave allegations of abuse of many hallowed boundaries in management of the party in this instance from Asiwaju, and not from some members of the NWC who themselves are not shining examples of team players?

Millions and millions of Nigerians joined the APC as members because they believed it could provide a credible alternative to the outrage which the PDP had become. Millions more shared their faith and voted APC candidates into power at all levels. The party is therefore pre-eminently the party of the Nigerian with no billions of Naira or extensive stores of political assets. These simple folk wanted leaders who will work for them, and a party that will protect the investments they have made with their votes. They watched as powerful party leaders fought each other over positions and ambitions. Much energy was dissipated in fights, mostly using proxies, between leaders of the same party in control of the executive and the legislature. President Buhari's style of creating distance between him and some of these damaging skirmishes merely encouraged fights to last longer or become more vicious as combatants made their own rules. Turfs changed hands and new alliances emerged on the basis of perceptions over where real power and influence resided. Quarrels were left to fester because the party was reluctant to tread on toes. Hardly anyone paid attention to the need to constantly manage the party to withstand opposition as governance becomes more challenging in a period of economic recession; to manage ambitious members who have eyes on 2019 and 2023;to limit damage arising from real possibility that the party could bleed badly as many of its members leave to join the much-touted emerging third option.

It cannot escape Tinubu's calculations that his diatribe against Oyegun has now placed him firmly in the position that will work against the success of the party in the Ondo gubernatorial elections. The timing of his assault is very likely to influence the  Edo State elections as well. If that is indeed his goal, it is time to advise him to re-assess his position in the party. Asiwaju's place in the history of the struggle against the PDP is unrivaled, but he may have just about reached the end of his journey in this vessel. Chief Oyegun may also have been mortally wounded by Tinubu, no matter the veracity of the allegations against him. These two upstanding Nigerians who were in the frontline of the battle to defeat PDP cannot now continue to live in the same party. Chief Oyegun has made history by being the first chairman to lead his political party to victory against an incumbent government. The record of the party under his stewardship since election will indicate that it is inconsistent with this achievement. His stature under an increasingly-lowered bar will be a disservice to his achievement, and a liability to a party which needs renewal and revalidation to deal with current and emerging challenges. Too many lines have been, and are being crossed in a party bearing the hopes of millions. President Buhari needs to assert himself and salvage the party that brought him to power, so that it can operate as an electoral asset for a party that needs to control power beyond 2019.He has some very difficult decisions to make, but then this is what Nigerians elected him for.