Rejecting The ‘College Of Leaders’ Scheme And Its Unconstitutionality In Delta  APC

By Prince Efe Duku

The question whether the desire by some for a ‘College of Leaders’ operating alongside the established leadership and management organs of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State is constitutional, legitimate, and appropriate warrants a civil and respectful debate. It is a mistake to think that this question can be properly addressed through happenstance, manipulation, authoritarian tactics or hostile insults. Good knowledge, calmness and open-mindedness are needed for a productive debate.

Self-assured leaders do not fear robust intellectual or commonsense debates. Rather, armed with convincing facts and evidence, they present their case to correct opposing views and build durable consensus and support. On the other hand, if an idea is irreparably flawed, its proponents should have the humility to admit it and accept superior viewpoints. Pouring to hate-filled insults on opponents when we fail to convince them is a weakness, not a good strategy. Often, those who do this assume that they can intimidate and cow well-informed opponents.

It should be said from the onset that the focus here is on the collegiate leadership issue, not on individuals or their statuses. One thing is certain: having evolved consistently in Delta’s opposition politics for over 25 years since the Kragha-Ibori days, one holds true leaders in the highest esteem. This remains true even when there are disagreements. It is crucial to separate issues from personalities to objectively find the truth. This is why individuals’ statuses yield to the force and power of facts, evidence, the law and sound reasoning in civilised conversations and constests. The same standard applies when interrogating political issues to uncover the truth.

Now, to the topic itself. As projected, the ‘College of Leaders’ is a conclave of unelected, self-proclaimed ‘super leaders’ with extensive, self-granted powers to dictate the overall direction and destiny of the party, particularly the authority to endorse or disqualify candidates running for elective positions at the party’s congresses or primaries. This collegiate council is designed to operate exclusively in Delta State in the whole of Nigeria at the State, Local Government (LG) and Ward levels in parallel with the party’s constitutionally recognised State Executive Committee (SEC)/State Working Committee (SWC), LG Executive Committee/LGA Working Committee and Ward Executive Committee, respectively. The idea is not entirely new; it has been proposed before but was overwhelmingly rejected due to its excessive overreach. The consequences of that rejection resulted in some of the promoters of the scheme filing court cases, but none was successful.

Clothed in self-granted bourgeoisie or elitist superiority, the ‘College of Leaders’ is conceived to issue commands to the constitutionally recognised organs of the party for slavish execution. Its membership is veiled in ambiguity, lacking clear criteria. At best, it is for autopilot godfatherism. Without any room for organic, rules-based inputs by the party’s grassroots to its composition and constitution, it smacks of a disingenuous power grab to initiate and maintain pretentious hegemonic dominance. It mimics an authoritarian power centre, akin to the Chinese Communist Party, aiming to enforce obedience and subservience from party members at significant costs that are not acknowledged or anticipated under the party’s constitution. As it is said, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck.

Fundamentally, a ‘College of Leaders’ or ‘Leadership Council,’ or anyhow named or styled, is not an organ of the APC. It is unknown to the party’s constitution and therefore illegitimate in that context. It cannot be arbitrarily imposed on the party without a principled rejection. Doing otherwise is to promote an egregious and desperate ‘rule of man’ to annual and run roughshod over the party’s constitutional. This itself must qualify as the zenith of anti-party malfeasance for which serious sanctions should apply. This conclusion may only be rebutted by pointing to specific constitutional provisions that unequivocally permit the functioning of this strange body in the APC. Even the highest decibels of insults on opponents will not do.

Concerned about the lawless aggressiveness behind the so-called ‘Leadership Council’, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party recently clarified that it “… did not grant approval for the inauguration or operation of the “Leadership Council” in the Delta State Chapter of our Party …” in a strong rebuttal of dishonest claims to the contrary. Going further, the NWC reaffirmed that “The said “Leadership Council” is not a body created or recognized under the Party’s Constitution which clearly spells out the statutory organs, structures and committees of the Party, and their respective powers and functions. The “Leadership Council” is not one of such constitutional organs, ad hoc structures or committees of the Party”. This should suffice to initiate a change of direction, but not where there exists a desperate and lawless contractual obligation designed by some to undermine the party and achieve nefarious profitmaking objectives.

Shrouded in blatant unconstitutionality, the ‘Leadership Council’ scheme shows all the hallmarks of a malignant plot designed to sow internal discord within the party, ultimately serving the interests of its promoters or external forces. This is partly because its proponents have not demonstrated the courage to question the legal validity, sufficiency, and capability of the existing constitutional organs of the party to uniformly and effectively administer its affairs nationwide, including in Delta State. While the constitutional right of the proponents to freely associate is preserved and respected, they also have a bounden duty to respect the rules of the party as a voluntary organisation with objectives that repel deliberate disruptions.

Without any specifically identified challenges to the current constitutional processes of the APC, the collegiate council contraption is a deliberate attack on the party’s proper functioning. No political party in Nigeria’s democratic history has ever managed its affairs along the unmitigated chaos wrapped in the conceptualisation of the so-called council. A crucial irony is that some beneficiaries of the present constitutional orderliness of the party are also drawing daggers against it!

It is of significance to note knowing that the council is widely unpopular, its proponents shy away from proposing it as a constitutional amendment to the party. Instead, they prefer to impose it arbitrarily. It is merely an effort to establish a perilous precedent that will encourage fringe, weak, disgruntled, or disruptive elements with factional inclinations within any State Chapter of the party to intermittently create and impose unconstitutional ad-hoc structures that cater to their whims, thereby derailing the party. This can never ever be encouraged by any responsible national leadership of an organised political party.

John Maxwell teaches that, “Leadership is influence,” nothing less. Respectable political leadership is often the result of intentional investment of scarce resources, time, personal commitment, and sound principles for the good of the people. It involves effective support for the grassroots to keep the party virile. Leadership is not self-granted by merely belonging to strange organic entities that usurp the constitutional powers of the party’s organs. Regrettably, this is essentially the model of the ‘College of Leaders’. Properly understood, it is a vicious attempt to establish a ‘College of Dictators’ within the party, starting with Delta. This is too dangerous to be accepted as a precedent for the APC – a liberal party of the people.