IN 1998, the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), which was then called All Peoples Party (APP), was a party to reckon it. It almost produced the president and the party was regarded as the only party then capable of challenging the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In subsequent elections, the party lost its revered place to internal crisis. Most of its members even dumped it for the PDP. And perhaps, it was the exit of its three times president candidate Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) that has changed everything.
After the April 2011 polls the ANPP finally lost its position to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) as it contains the threat of the CPC to its existence in the North.
In 1999 the ANPP won nine states - Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Sokoto, Zamfara, Taraba, Yobe, Borno and Jigawa - mainly from the North. In the National Assembly, the party had considerable numbers of lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives and it the PDP even acknowledged it to be a strong contender for the presidency in 2003.
By 2003, the party?s position has dropped. It lost two states to PDP and was left with seven. By 2007, the political fortune of ANPP slid further as it could only retain three states.
In the April polls, ANPP could not improve on its performance; it lost Kano, regarded as its stronghold. The former governor Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau who contested the presidential election, failed to deliver the state to ANPP. It lost the state it snatched from the PDP eight years ago to the PDP. Shekarau had defeated the incumbent governor, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso and it was to the same Kwankwaso that Shekarau handed over to in May 2011.
As the ANPP was losing, the CPC, which Buhari formed after he left ANPP was making an impact in the North. It won more states in the National Assembly and won the governorship election in Nasarawa State. The CPC won six national Assembly seats - one in Kano, three in Katsina and one each in Kaduna, Niger and Nasarawa in the Senate. And in the House of Representatives, CPC had 35 seats - Bauchi, four; Kaduna, seven; Kano, two; Katsina, 12; Nasarawa, three; Niger, four; and one each in Taraba, Adamawa and Gombe.
ANPP won about 20 seats in the National Assembly. In Kano ANPP got six seats and CPC won one seat.
In Borno, ANPP won the governorship election but the incumbent Governor Ali Modu Sheriff lost his bid to return to the Borno Central Senatorial seat, which he vacated in 2003. The party was left with one senatorial district and eight seats in the House of Representatives. The party retained Yobe and Zamfara states.
ANPP started experiencing challenges when Alhaji Yusuf Ali took over as the party national chairman; his tenure was short-lived when he was accused of partisanship and corruption, a development that led to the dissolution of the executive council and appointment of a caretaker committee led by the former Sokoto State governor, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa.
At its convention in 2002, Chief Don Etiebet emerged the leader of the party but he could not resolve the internal crises in the party. Etiebet eventually left ANPP for the PDP and Sheriff was appointed to lead the party. By the time Sherrif took over, many of the party stalwarts have already left for other party and on April 4, 2006, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke took over the leadership.
The Government of National Unity (GNU) arrangement, which ANPP joined under the administration of the late President Umaru Yar?Adua further weaken its position as the opposition party. By the time it decided to pull out of the arrangement the party?s rank had weakened and most of its members who had participated in one way or the other rather defected to PDP.
But President Yar?Adua took the PDP-ANPP romance to the next level after admitting that the election that brought him to power was not without problems. He constituted GNU and brought in the ANPP and the Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA) on board. When the ANPP accepted to join the government, it was given three ministerial appointments and three special advisers.
Those appointed were Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki Nakande (Plateau State), Hajia Sa?adat Bungudu (Zamfara State) and former National Vice chairman of the party Alhaji Abdulrahman Adamu (Adamawa State). The special advisers included then national secretary of the ANPP, Senator Saidu Umar Kumo, son of the former National Chairman, Chineme Ume-Ezeoke and Prince Ebuta Ojang Ayuk, also former national officer of the party. Ume Ezeoke has joined PDP. But the struggle to fill the party?s quota in Yar?Adua?s GNU left the party more deeply divided because members felt that the party leaders appointed themselves. The Bauchi State Governor, Malam Isa Yuguda, said his defection to the PDP was hinged on the failure of the party to allocate one of the appointments to his state. The politics of the nominee from Zamfara also formed part of the accumulated problems that led to the defection of former governor of Zamfara Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi to the PDP.
When President Jonathan inherited the GNU from Yar?Adua, he appointed Hajia Yabawa Lawan Wabi (Borno) and Mrs. Salamatu Suleiman (Kebbi) as ministers. They served up to the beginning of this week when the President dissolved his cabinet. The question on the lips of many observers now is: who does such ?collaborative governments? benefits?
While the party was battling with the consequence caused to it by participation in the GNU, Buhari left the party. His departure with his supporters depleted the rank of ANPP while Ume-Ezeoke who was then battling with credibility problem succeeded in handing over to Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu.
Shortly after President Olusegun Obasanjo?s inauguration in 1999, he appointed Alhaji Mahmoud Waziri, pioneer national chairman of the All Peoples Party (APP), as Special Adviser on Inter Party Relations. Many party supporters raised questions regarding his commitment to the party but he saw it as a call to national duty. Also, in his first tenure, Obasanjo appointed Hajia Aishatu Ismail, from the APP, as minister of women affairs.
In his second term, Obasanjo appointed Chief Rochas Okorocha, presidential aspirant of the ANPP in 2003 as Special Adviser on inter party relations. By then the number of states controlled by the party had dropped from nine to seven. Okorocha is now governor of Imo State on the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) after a brief sojourn in the PDP.
However the former presidential candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC), Alhaji Bashir Tofa said that Buhari?s exit was a welcome development, advising him to go home and rest with the status of an elder statesman. Also, the ANPP leadership has declared that it will not go after him in the name of reconciliation but will rather maintain the status quo with its doors left wide opened for him anytime he decided to come back into the fold.
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