There is nothing thing wrong with political espionage by a political party to neutralize what a rival political party is planning. Politics is a soft warfare using guile, intelligence, strategy, and anything to destabilize your opponent. When we were forming the APC, we experienced a lot of infiltration and plots staged by the Federal Government, which was then controlled by the PDP. Bolaji Abdullahi was not involved, so he would not know what the leaders of APC then passed through. I read the bitter grumbling of Bolaji Abdullahi, the Spokesman of the crisis-ridden African Democratic Congress (ADC), that the APC had infiltrated the ADC to stabilize it. Bolaji Abdullahi and his master waited until 2014 to join the APC—one year after its formation.
I remember how the PDP used Ugochukwu Chinyere to nearly scuttle the registration of APC with INEC. After APC had submitted its application for registration, Ugochukwu Chinyere quickly rushed to the Federal High Court, Abuja, to file an application for mandamus against INEC registering APC on the ground that the acronym APC conflicted with that of another political association known as the African Peoples Congress (APC). However, since the facts of the case were hinged on quicksand, the case was thrown out.
Another attempt to scuttle the merger was hatched by a renegade faction of the defunct CPC led by Senator Hanga. Senator Hanga was the pro tem Chairman of CPC. In December 2010, he resigned to pave the way for the election of the substantive National Executive Committee of the CPC, scheduled for its national convention held on 4th–6th January 2011. This led to the election of Prince Tony Momoh as the National Chairman of the CPC. Senator Hanga ran the governorship primaries for Kano State but lost. Surprisingly, in 2013, when the merger talks were already going on, he filed a case in the High Court claiming that he was the authentic National Chairman of the CPC and that he, not Prince Tony Momoh, was the only one who could decide whether the CPC should merge. He claimed to be the competent authority to take such a decision on behalf of the CPC. However, Senator Hanga and his faction lost the case. I was counsel in the case for CPC.
By Okoi Obono-Obla
One Comment
Good writeup