Oyegun bombs Oshiomhole, insists APC chair lacks character to manage party 

Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Immediate past national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), John Odigie-Oyegun, has reacted angrily to the report that he set booby trap for his successor, Adams Oshiomhole, to fail, arguing that the former Edo State governor failed because he lacks the capacity to manage the different interests and tendencies that constitute a political party.

Last week, the South-South State chairmen of the party had while defending the embattled APC chairman, faulted the outburst of the party’s Deputy National Chairman, North, Lawali  Shuaibum accusing Oyegun of laying landmines targeted at destroying the party before departing.

The communique issued after their meeting in Abuja and jointly signed by the six South-South APC State chairmen, claimed that it was the landmines created by his predecessor who was bent on destroying the party before departing that fuelled the unfortunate situation.

“We wonder why Shuaibu is just realizing the issues he raised barely few days after the NWC set up a committee to look into petitions against highly-placed party stakeholders who were glaringly involved in anti-party activities which was responsible for the loss of the number of states mentioned in his letter visa–viz the depletion also in the numbers of elected senators in the just concluded 2019 elections,” the communique read.

However, reacting to it in a statement signed by his adviser, Ray Morphy, Oyegun said: “That statement of booby traps is ludicrous and infantile, an attempt to drum up justification for the failings of the party under Oshiomhole chairmanship. Oshiomhole fails because he lacks the temperament that is required to run a political party. He lacks the capacity to manage the different interests and tendencies that constitute a political party.

The statement further noted that “Oshiomhole engages his mouth before engaging his mind, so he offends party members, so how does that constitute booby traps by Oyegun, the erstwhile chairman.

“Already, the Deputy National Chairman has confirmed that Oshiomhole runs the party without recourse to the NWC. He acts in direct opposite of decisions taken by the NWC. No minutes of NWC meetings which in any event take place outside the party secretariat.

“How would you not have crisis in states with the confusion that Oshiomhole created when he gave the states freedom to choose their methods of choosing candidates for elections? Much of the crisis in states arose out of sheer incapacity on the part of the current chairman, how did Oshiomhole’s incapacity become booby traps by Oyegun?

“Many party men were aghast at the unfairness and injustice meted them during the party primaries process. Only a bad carpenter quarrels with his tools. Indeed, Oshiomhole is degrading and de-marketing the party; rather than seeking to bring more people on board, he is chasing people out of the party with his agbero style of engagement,” Oyegun quipped in the statement.