Ismail Omipidan
Aggrieved members of the ruling All Progressives Party (APC), yesterday listed what they considered were their grievances against National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, saying that he has become “contagious” to the continued survival of the party.
A prominent member of the party who pleaded not to be named noted that part of the reasons most members of the National Working Committee (NWC) and other aggrieved members are up in arms against Oshiomhole was largely because he allegedly runs the “show alone.”
The party chieftain further said “before our Deputy National Chairman wrote his letter, were you not in this country when our National Legal Adviser complained that our National Chairman was usurping his powers?
“The mere fact that majority of us are not complaining openly does not mean that all is well. The NWC is divided. The chairman has lost it. He is high-handed, greedy and selfish. He has become contagious to the survival of the party. Only his sack will restore sanity to the party,” the party chieftain added.
Another chieftain of the party in Rivers State, Kingsley Wali, also said Oshiomhole is responsible for the predicament the party suffered in different parts of the country in the build-up to the just-concluded general elections and as such the party should take a collective decision to ease him out to avert further damage to its fortunes.
“The reasonable thing for APC as a party to do is to ask Oshiomhole to vacate his seat so that a new orientation can come in that will help the party move forward. If we insist on characterising the ‘Next Level’ slogan of the APC, the attitude that Adams Oshiomhole exhibited cannot be in tandem with the present vision of Nigeria. The man was running a one-man show. In every decent political clime, once you lead a party and the party did not perform well you have to go. Let us not delude ourselves because we won the presidency, what about the governorship seats. What is in the public domain is that Adams Oshiomhole is hell-bent on making sure that Obaseki doesn’t come back, Yahaya Bello doesn’t come back, Akeredolu doesn’t come back, I don’t know his interest in Bayelsa State. In every democracy, the sitting president or the sitting governor is given a right of first refusal,” he added.
Also speaking, Alhaji Mumakai Unagha, a former presidential aspirant on the party’s platform, who incidentally was among those who started the “Oshiomhole Must Go” campaign in 2018, shortly after the party congresses, said “there is no doubt, you are aware that our party performed poorly during the presidential, National Assembly, Governorship and House of Assembly elections. Instead of the party reclaiming some states, we lost the ones we were holding onto. These states include: Imo, Zamfara, Sokoto, Bauchi, Oyo and Adamawa States.
“There were other potential states APC would have won if the national chairman had listened to the voice of reason and immaculate judgment to resolving the crisis he created within the hierarchy of the party across the federation.
“Rather than address the crises, he fuelled them making us believed that he is anti- APC. When he unilaterally hiked the cost of obtaining Presidential, National Assembly, Governorship and House of Assembly nomination forms, we raised alarm and our alarm did not see the light of the day. He created crisis in virtually almost all the 36 states of the federation. As we speak, his home state, Edo is currently on fire and there is possibility that the party may lose the forth coming election in the state if urgent step is not taken.
“The national chairman has done more damage than good to the party. In the light of the above, and on behalf of the coalition of 2019 APC ex-presidential aspirants and Forum of Core APC, we wish to renew our call on the national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to honourably resign to save the party from imminent collapse.
“He has caused more damage to the party and he should give peace a chance. We are also calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene to save the party from going into extinction. If urgent steps are not taken now, Oshiomhole will kill the party,” he added.
Meanwhile, some of the out-going senators and a few of the senators-elect have revealed that they are finding difficult to sell the candidacy of the of the out-going Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), largely because of Oshiomhole’s utterances concerning the contest.
Lawan is one of the major contenders for the Senate presidency. He has been endorsed by the leadership of the party. But in presenting his candidature, Oshiomhole had warned that no member of the opposition will get any “grade A” committee chairman, a statement members of the opposition are not comfortable with.
“If Lawan fails to clinch the position, Oshiomhole should be blamed. He has not marketed him well. And because of the way he has so far marketed him, we are finding it difficult convincing our PDP colleagues to support his candidature,” a Senator-elect confided in Daily Sun.
On his part, former Minority Leader in the House of Representatives and a chieftain of the APC, Mohammed Umara Kumalia, is of the view that the position of the Deputy President of the Senate should go to either the South South or the South East.
“My advice for the party is to do the needful. Do the zoning but allow the members who have the prerogative to elect those they want to be their leaders. However, the party has a role to regulate how this is done so as to ensure that no particular section of the country dominates the positions. For instance, we have president and vice president already; the president is from the North-West while the vice president is from the South-West. Therefore, you cannot take the Senate president and give to the North-West or take the position of Speaker and give to the South-West. There are several other geopolitical zones that must enjoy from these other offices for equal representation. I contend that none of these two zones; North West and South West should produce any Presiding officer. The four presiding officers’ positions should go to the North East (Senate President), South South (Deputy Senate President or Deputy Speaker), North Central (Speaker) and South East (Deputy Senate President or Deputy Speaker). This is my opinion,” Kumalia added.