Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Deputy National Chairman, Senator Shuaibu Lawal, has warned the Adams Oshiomhole-led national leadership of the party that Governor Godwin Obaseki, remains the strongest candidate of the party in the forthcoming 2020 Edo state governorship election.
Fielding questions from newsmen when he formally resumed at the national Secretariat of the party on Wednesday, he insisted that it will be impossible to reconcile aggrieved party members due to the kind of structure in place.
Shuaibu, who received thunderous ovation on arrival at the party headquarters, said that he will embark on a mission to rebuild the party but should the national chairman refuse to take his advice, there is nothing he can do again.
On the way forward for the party sitting on a keg of gunpowder in Edo, he said: “It is not a time bomb. We all heard President Muhammadu Buhari during the last National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting announce that any governor who have performed well deserve a second term.
“There is no time bomb because why should you prefer any other person than the setting governor? It is like that all over the world even in America that started this democracy. Donald Trump has no opposition and nobody is contesting against him.
“It does not make sense to bring another person to contest against the governor. Governor Obaseki is the strongest candidate of the APC we have in Edo state,” he insisted.
He spoke on his resumption, noting: “Nobody suspended me, it was just a fight that I wanted to avoid. I don’t want to continue the fight and that was why I kept quite. All I wanted to do was to raise my hand before the market burns because by the time the market goes aflame everybody may be consumed.
“All I have said in that letter have all come to pass. It is wrong to say that the war is over because to me, there was no war in the first place. My letter to Oshiomhole was very personal to either save the party or allow it to collapse.
“The structures of the party as a result of the inability of the leadership to reposition the party has become very weak. From wards to the national centres, the structures have become weak and that was what I was trying to avoid.
“I told him to come back to the track and if he cannot do it, let him leave because some of us have suffered to build this party. However, as he said, in the spirit of reconciliation, all these are now bygone because there is nothing anybody can do when he said he has extended the olive branch.
“Oshiomhole is my very good friend and we have been very close friends but when something went wrong, I cannot sit down when the house is collapsing on our heads without telling the world what was happening.
Asked what he recommend as measure to strengthen the weak party, he said: “There are ways of doing it. We are not new comers in this game, we know how to revamp the partty but it only depends on whether they can listen to us. I am not the chairman, he is, if we advice and he does not take our advice and if he refuses to take, what do we do.”
On the possibility of the Bisi Akande National Reconciliation Committee succeeding, he said: “Let me tell you something. The pertinent question is who do you reconcile. You told me to come and buy expression of interest form for N2.5 million or so and when I bought the form, but when it comes to the contest, you will say no that only this person’s will get the ticket, but you didn’t refund my money, how to you reconcile that. “There are things you don’t return to, you better forget it. We have to create an avenue for a new beginning and move forward because human beings easily forget. Because of the love they have for this party, they will want to open a new beginning,” he noted.