By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) – The head of Nigeria's ruling All Progressives Congress has officially withdrawn from his reelection bid at the party's convention slated for June 25, potentially averting what analysts had warned could be a bitter and fatal contest.
John Oyegun said in a statement late Friday that it was in the “interests of the party” for him to withdraw from the race, even though he had planned to run amid support from an influential segment of the party.
“I do not intend to be part of the problem for the APC to solve. It is for this reason that I hereby declare that I will not be seeking reelection,” Oyegun said.
He will however remain chairman until the convention, when a new leader will emerge.
Oyegun said he was party to the initial move to extend the tenure of the current APC leadership across the board in a bid to forestall a bitter contest and division arising from competitive congresses and convention just a few months before general elections, set for February 2019.
“If this decision was sustained, we probably would have achieved our objective. But we would only have succeeded also in postponing the evil days, as it were,” he explained. “In retrospect, I am inclined to agree with the viewpoint that even a young political party as ours needs to be subjected to the crucible of these contestations, which in any case, is the hallmark of progressive politics.”
A crucial section of the party is fiercely opposed to Oyegun remaining at the helm, accusing him of being weak and unable to enforce discipline among members, especially elected officials — partly a reference to how some APC members colluded with the opposition to deny the former its choice of parliament leadership.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who openly opposed tenure extension for Oyegun in the “interest of the law,” is believed to back another candidate.
Oyegun’s withdrawal is important for the party as it lessens the chance of it officially splitting into factions after the convention. A similar split of the then-ruling PDP led to its defeat at the polls in 2015. Already, a coalition involving top politicians and former leaders have ganged up against Buhari's 2019 reelection bid.
