Nigeria: Ruling Party Threatens to Punish Splinter Group Abandoning President Buhari

Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party this week disavowed the Reformed APC breakaway faction made up of politicians who no longer supports President Muhammadu Buhari’s government because it is “inept and incompetent,” warning that it will “not hesitate to take lawful actions” against members of the splinter group, various news reports revealed

On Thursday, President Buhari’s APC party flat out denied the existence of the splinter group R-APC, saying it had launched an investigation into the “true membership status” of the splinter group’s (R-APC) leaders.

“While we shall continue to monitor developments in this respect, we will not hesitate to take lawful actions to defend the unity of our party and protect the sanctity of its identity. We are currently reviewing the action of this so-called faction, in order to determine if any aspect of the party’s constitution has been breached with the connivance of any of our members,” the ruling APC declared on Thursday, the Guardian from Nigeria reports.

The emergence of the new faction led by former Buhari ally Buba Galadima may hamper embattled Buhari’s hopes to secure a second term.

“The APC has run a rudderless, inept and incompetent government that has failed to deliver good governance to the Nigerian people,” Galadima, the national R-APC, told reporters in Abuja late on Wednesday, Reuters reports, adding, “He said the faction, described as the authentic voice of the APC, has representatives in all Nigeria’s local government wards and states.”

Despite the membership of prominent figures such as Galadima, a founding member of the ruling party, the APC continues to deny the existence of the new faction, questioning whether the split group is made up of official party members, Nigeria’s the Guardian reports.

In a statement, Bolaji Ahmed, a spokesman for the APC, reportedly accused the faction of trying to create a false impression that the party is factionalized, saying:

The All Progressives Congress wishes to affirm that there is no faction in our party and declares the action by these individuals as mischievous and ill-advised. Having failed to scuttle the national convention as was their original plan, they have now resorted to this subterfuge as a way of achieving the pre-determined end of causing confusion. As a matter of fact, we doubt that these individuals parading as leaders of the so-called faction are actual members of our party. We are currently investigating their true membership status within the party.

Despite Ahmed’s assertion that there is no breakaway faction, Abdulaziz Yari, the APC chieftain and chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), expressed optimism that the party can bring the splinter faction back into the fold.

Expressing confidence that the APC and the R-APC can negotiate a truce, Yari reportedly told reporters Thursday, “You know that with the approach of [the] election, you will expect this kind of thing. You will expect crisis left, right and center, especially in a party with an overwhelming majority, because of political interests. The most important thing is that with the emergence of new leadership everything will be resolved. Therefore, no panic.”

Vanguard reports that R-APC has rejected the possibility of any truce, noting that leaders of the breakaway group “have reached a point of no return in their relationship with the mainstream” APC “and will not return.”

Hajia Binta Spikin, a spokesperson for Nigerian Sen. Rabiu Kwankwaso, a prominent R-APC leader, proclaimed that it was too late for further negotiations with the APC, stressing that the ruling party has failed to fulfill campaign promises.

Spikin proclaimed:

Oh no, it is a bit late, it is a bit late. The party has had its so called-convention, it has deviated from the original intentions why it was brought to being, so there is nothing that remains with the mainstream APC. I don’t know about the promises [APC chairman] Comrade [Adams] Oshiomhole keeps making. He keeps promising he will do this, he would do that, but it’s just promises like the promises the APC gave in the run-up to the 2015 general election.

Notwithstanding calls to step aside, President Buhari has vowed to seek re-election, the New York Times (NYT) noted in April.

His administration has faced widespread criticism over its inability to defeat Boko Haram’s terrorist campaign in northeastern Nigeria or to take decisive action against Fulani terrorists who are killing predominantly Christian farmers by the hundreds in the name of cattle grazing.

Buhari is ethnically Fulani, a nomadic group that is increasingly attacking Christian-majority settled farmers as they move south in search of grazing for their cattle. Southern Nigeria is home to a Christian-majority population while the northern part is mainly Muslim.