Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The immediate past Minister of Communication under President Muhammadu Buhari and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adebayo Shittu, has thrown his weight behind the recent call for the resignation of the APC National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
APC Deputy National Chairman North, Lawal Shuaibu had on Tuesday this week revealed a letter he wrote to Oshiomhole urging him to resign as national chairman having failed and shown gross incompetent to head the ruling party.
While decrying Oshiomhole’s highhandedness, he accused him of crashing the fortune and goodwill the party gathered in the 2015 general elections. He lamented the failure of the party, under Oshiomhole’s watch to consolidate the victory of the party at the governorship and National Assembly level.
“It is my honest opinion that your ability to ensure this party flourishes is deficient as you lack the necessary composure and you also don’t possess the capabilities and the requisite experience to run a political party.
“The respect APC was commanding among its members and sympathisers has been completely eroded, while the goodwill has equally evaporated with the type of attitude of threats to members you deploy, including senior members like governors, senators, ministers and other government officials whose functions do not fall within your jurisdiction,” the deputy national chairman noted.
Corroborating the call for Oshiomhole’s resignation, in Abuja, Shittu warned that the party will crumble after the tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari should it remain under Oshiomhole’s leadership, expressing readiness to join force with other disgruntled members of the party to push him out.
“I endorse the call for his resignation,” the ex-minister, who was disqualified by the Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) from contesting the Oyo State APC governorship primaries, said, stressing: “The truth is with Oshiomhole this party would go down by the time President Muhammadu Buhari finishes his second term.
“Oshiomhole is full of himself and he has an ego problem and wants to dominate every environment and democracy is not like that. I know that many of us who are conscionable members of the party who think of the future of this party and the fact that this party should continue to be relevant even after President Buhari has left office would stand by this call. We are concerned and everything that we can do to force him out, we will do it.”
Similarly, some NWC members, who spoke in confidence pointed out that the problem with the national chairman is his overbearing influence, adding that he wants to do everything himself.
According to them, “everything is wrong with Oshiomhole running the affairs of the party virtually from his personal office and practically making the hitherto bubbling party’s national secretariat a shadow of itself.”
However, a member of the NWC told our correspondent that those calling for his resignation were those that did not understand his idiosyncrasies, adding: “We can work with him because we have known his weakness and idiosyncrasies. One thing good about him is that once you convince him in an argument, he will adopt it as his own and pursue it with vigour.”