…woo NEC, NWC members
• Replacements shortlisted
• It won’t happen – EPM
Ahead of the alleged plan to remove the suspended National Chairman of the All
Progressives Congress, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, from office during
Tuesday’s National Executive Committee meeting, some state governors on the
platform of the party may have begun the collection of signatures of NEC and
National Working Committee members disposed to their proposed action, The
Point has learnt.
The Point gathered that the APC governors, at the weekend, began and
intensified the drive to collect signatures of APC NEC and NWC members ready
to endorse Oshiomhole’s sack from office with the Secretariat of the Progressive
Governors’ Forum coordinating the process.
The governors were also said to have already started shopping for Oshiomhole’s
replacement and even “keeping close to their chest their own list of candidates to
be considered for the position of the new national chairman” at the NEC meeting.
But it was also learnt that the name of a former governor of Cross River State
features prominently on the governors’ list.
The rank of the eight APC state governors initially said to have been opposed to
Oshiomhole also swelled at the weekend, The Point gathered, as no fewer than
seven others were said to have joined their colleagues plotting the party
chairman’s removal from office.
The intrigues by the governors to remove Oshiomhole was confirmed by the PGF
Director-General, Salihu Lukman, who on Friday, urged President Muhammadu
Buhari and the APC National Working Committee to intervene in the current
crisis by appointing an acting national chairman for the party.
Lukman said President Buhari and the NWC should liaise with APC governors
and the party’s National Caucus, to convene a NEC meeting, where an acting
National Chairman would be appointed.
He argued that this would provide a window of opportunity for the party to
rebuild and restore confidence.
The Point had, two weeks ago, reported a fresh plot by APC state governors to
remove Oshiomhole over control of events that will lead to the party’s
presidential primary for the 2023 poll and his perceived sympathy and
preference for the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as
successor to President Buhari.
A member of the House of Representatives from Edo State, Prof. Julius
Ihonvbere, who spoke with our correspondent in Benin, confirmed to The Point
the governors’ plan to oust the APC national chairman from office.
The governors plotting Oshiomhole’s sack, it was further learnt at the weekend,
have sent their emissaries round the various APC states to get relevant party
chieftains to sign the document allegedly being prepared for passing a vote of no
confidence in him at the NEC meeting.
The anti-Oshiomhole governors, The Point learnt, have also reached out to
majority of the APC state chairmen, members of the National Working
Committee and even non-elected NWC members to buy into their plot by
supporting their plan to remove Oshiomhole through a no-confidence vote at
Tuesday’s NEC meeting.
A chieftain of the party, who pleaded anonymity, alleged that the party NEC
members had already been offered some largesse “in thousands of dollars and
other foreign currencies of their choice” to back their plan to sack Oshiomhole at
the NEC meeting.
The APC state governors, it was learnt, see the current travails of Oshiomhole as
an auspicious and opportune time for them to finally move against him and
finally oust him from the party for “clipping their wings and even working
against their interests since his assumption of office.”
Oshiomhole himself had last Thursday, shortly after meeting President Buhari at
the Presidential Villa, Abuja, raised the alarm that some APC governors and a
serving minister were behind his current travails in the party.
He specifically mentioned the governor of his home state of Edo, Godwin
Obaseki, as the arrowhead of the forces plotting his downfall.
Credible party sources fingered the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum,
Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who is also the Ekiti State governor; Chairman, Progressives
Governors Forum, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku-Bagudu of Kebbi State; Jigawa State
Governor, Muhammad Badaru; Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State; and
Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello as the masterminds of the plot to kick
Oshiomhole out of office. They also identified a popular minister from the South
South as working in concert with the governors to show the embattled APC
national chairman the door.
While briefing reporters in Abuja shortly after his last Thursday’s meeting with
Buhari, Oshiomhole, who also rained curses on his perceived enemies plotting
his sack from the APC, said, “Those who are parading themselves, holding
meetings at night, my prayer to my God is that let them meet at night, what they
do at night will be destroyed by light in the day time.
“I don’t go for night business, I do day business. They know themselves, they
know me and I know them.”
But shortly before Oshiomhole’s meeting with Buhari, Fayemi, Atiku-Bagudu,
and the Governor of Jigawa State, Muhammad Badaru, had met with the
President.
Although the governors did not speak with reporters after their meeting with
Buhari, impeccable sources told The Point that their visit to the President was
not unconnected with the ongoing developments in the ruling APC, especially the
controversy surrounding the suspension of its National Chairman, Oshiomhole,
by a court and how to quickly check the burgeoning crisis from degenerating.
Things got to a head for the embattled Oshiomhole on Wednesday when a
Federal High Court sitting in Jabi, Abuja, granted an interlocutory injunction
suspending him from office and also restricted him from entering the premises
of the APC National Secretariat in Abuja.
15 APC GOVS, STATE PARTY CHAIRMEN SIGN DOCUMENT
Although a court of coordinate jurisdiction, Federal High Court, Kano, had on
Thursday upturned the ruling of the FCT High Court with an order that the status
quo ante Bellum be maintained, further compounding the situation, it was
gathered that no fewer than 15 governors of the APC and their state party
chairmen had already appended their signatures on the document being
circulated for the purpose of removing Oshiomhole from office at Tuesday’s NEC
meeting of the ruling party.
The Point learnt that the APC governors were at the weekend insistent and
desperate in their bid to oust Oshiomhole from office in order to seize the reins
of the party’s machinery, which they had once controlled, especially ahead of the
forthcoming 2023 general elections.
The governors plotting Oshiomhole’s sack from office, it was learnt, have the
ultimate plan of installing one of them as the successor to President
Muhammadu Buhari in 2023, and to also clear the hurdles for them to install
their own successors in their various states. And to achieve their ambition, it was
learnt, they must remove Oshiomhole, who they believe could truncate their
plans at both the Federal and state levels, if he is left to remain in office as the
APC national chairman.
OBASEKI, AKEREDOLU AS OSHIOMHOLE’S ARCHILLES HEEL
The governors are also said to be unhappy with Oshiomhole for allegedly
planning to deny two of their colleagues- Obaseki and Ondo State Governor
Rotimi Akeredolu- their tickets for a second term in office, an action which result
in the APC losing the two states in the forthcoming governorship elections, hence
their decision to move against his continued stay in office as the party’s national
chairman.
A credible source within the party told The Point that the reforms embarked
upon by Oshiomhole since June 24, 2018, when he assumed office as the APC
national chairman had angered the governors, particularly what they had come
to construe as his deliberate making of the chairmen of the state chapters of the
party independent of their state governors.
Although President Buhari, who is the leader of the party was said to have
endorsed the reforms introduced by Oshiomhole by insisting on respect for the
constitution and decisions of the party at all times, some APC governors, who are
not happy with the party chairman’s actions, are said to have vowed that he must
not be allowed to remain in office, especially as the 2023 polls approach.
WE’LL RESIST OSHIOMHOLE’S REMOVAL- LOYALISTS
But loyalists of the embattled APC national chairman in his home state of Edo
have vowed to resist the moves by Governor Obaseki and his other colleagues to
sack Oshiomhole from office.
They warned the Federal Government and the security agencies to intervene and
stop the activities of suspected hoodlums backing the governor against the APC
national chairman in his home state.
A former commissioner for education under Oshimhole’s administration in the
state, Hon. Gideon Obhakhan, accused the Obaseki government of sponsoring
terrorism against the citizens of the state over his desperation for a second term
in office.
According to him, “Houses are being bombed, offices raided by gun-toting
hoodlums, hotels brought down by bulldozers, meetings and rallies violently
halted. Very recently, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, the national chairman of the
All Progressives Congress, was locked up in his Benin home with both entrances
to his street blocked with trucks that were set ablaze. All these acts of violence
clearly portray the state as a lawless state. Complete breakdown of law and
order is imminent if nothing is done urgently. This is because it is illegal to be
law-abiding in a lawless state. Those being oppressed may soon take up arms to
defend themselves.
"Edo State urgently requires an Operation Python Dance to douse the tensions
and return the state to normalcy.”
Recounting the ordeal of Oshiomhole’s supporters in the hands of Governor
Obaseki and his loyalists in the state, a former minority whip of the House of
Representatives and a co-Convener of the Edo Peoples Movement, Hon. Samson
Osagie, said, “From the laughable to the absurd, Obaseki, our governor, is
travelling a long and convoluted route to a dreamland called second term for
what would have taken him humility, superb interpersonal skills, compassion,
pragmatic approach to governance, quality infrastructure, guided utterances,
respect for party leaders and members. He blew it, having become emboldened
by the increased security vote of N6billion per annum and the counsel of
Ahitophel offered him by a few advisers left in his office.
“Truth is that, support for a political ambition is not obtained by coercion,
demolition of properties, sacking of workers, breaching parliamentary traditions
etc. but through dialogue, negotiations and collaboration.”
HE MUST RESPECT CONSTITUTED AUTHORITY IN EDO- OBASEKI’S LOYALISTS
But a loyalist of Obaseki, Hon. Benji Ojietu, said supporters of the governor
would not relent until Oshiomhole has been finally shown the way out of the
APC.
He insisted that the embattled APC national chairman’s ward, local government
and state levels of the party had since suspended him and so it shall remain.
"Let me tell you, the Kano Court can’t save him. Unless he humbles himself and
respect the constituted authority and the governor of the state, he will continue
to receive disgrace. All they are doing now is just ranting."
But efforts by our correspondent to speak with the APC National Publicity
Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, on the latest development in the party
proved abortive.
The party’s spokesman did not pick his calls. He also did not reply text messages
sent to his phone as at press time.
OSHIOMHOLE’S SUSPENSION, NATIONAL DISGRACE- BODE GEORGE
But former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief
Olabode George, described the ruling APC as a congregation of strange bed
fellows.
George, who was reacting to the current crisis in the ruling party, described
Oshiomhole’s suspension as the party’s chairman as a “national disgrace.”
He told The Point, “I have never in my life heard that people in a party will take
their chairman to court to be suspended, a ruling party? Look back into history,
where do they find that? There is a leader of the party, where are the elders?
Where are the Board of Trustees’ members? In PDP, you still have people who
are showing concern, who can call the shot and tell Mr. Chairman, you are wrong.
Where are these people in APC?
“Is it not a national disgrace that the national chairman of the ruling party has
been asked to back out? Nigerians should note, they should note APC
methodology of management. It is not a political party. It is like something that
is conceptualized in a dream. They don’t have any tap root.”
