The national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Adams Oshiomhole is having sleepless moment as some governors of the party are set to remove him.
ThisDay reports that 15 of 21 governors of the party, being coordinated by one of them from the South-west, are collecting signatures to force a national executive committee meeting that would unseat the national chairman.
It was gathered that the governors would be converging on Abuja on Tuesday, October 23 to finalise their objective.
But Oshiomhole, in his reaction said the group seeking his removal is populated by persons who are uncomfortable with the positive reforms his leadership has brought to the party.
Oshiomhole who said he would not succumb to the governors’ and antics and impunity explained that contrary to insinuations by some of them and their allying stakeholders that he was out to liquidate the party, his mission is to galvanise the APC into a disciplined and cohesive platform ready to clinch victory at next year’s general elections.
In a statement by his chief press secretary, Mr. Simon Ebegbulem, the APC national chairman said while the party would not surrender its functions, which are constitutionally circumscribed to any other entities, it would always reach out to divergent tendencies and mediate the disparate political camps in the interest of party cohesion.
He assured stakeholders that the party is in safe hands as it marches, sure-footedly, to victory in the 2019 general election.
Oshiomhole further said only the party, and not pseudo political empires in the states, has the power to superintend the primary elections for the nomination of its candidates in the general election.
“To be clear, Oshiomhole did not become national chairman of the governing party to bring it down a notch from the pedestal of its 2015 electoral victory let alone to preside over its liquidation.
“Rather, his single-minded goal, from the outset of his declaration of interest in the position, was to deploy his capacity in helping to strengthen and reposition the party as a truly supreme and disciplined political entity,” he said.
He blamed those he referred to as “conservative elements” for spearheading a plot to pass a vote of no confidence on him stressing that their main grouse was his insistence on party supremacy and discipline.
He noted that before his emergence as chairman, the party was wallowing in impunity and disrespect to laid down rules.
He said he knew from the onset that those who supported the status quo that he supplanted would not cave in easily but will fight back.
“Although, it might appear fortuitous to some persons that he became national chairman at the threshold of the 2019 general election, the truth is that there is no accident in predestination.
“We must appreciate the fact that it has pleased the Almighty God to place him in the saddle of APC-led leadership at this time for a purpose,” said Oshiomhol.
Oshiomhole said the reforms he planned to bring about in the APC had begun to manifest in its vast flourish and ramifications, through instilling discipline, ensuring party supremacy, promoting due process, dealing with impunity and executive arrogance wherever they manifested to undermine intra-party electoral processes in the states.
“Again, we were not, in the least, deluded that the process of rebranding or rewriting the narrative of the four-year old party would be easy.
“What we are witnessing in the APC today is Oshiomhole’s adroit management of the strains and pains that accompany the birth of a resuscitated governing party,” he added.
Referring to the party’s handling of the primary election crises, Oshiomhole said the message was very clear that the party and not pseudo political empires in the states had the power to superintend the primary elections for the nomination of the party’s candidates in the general election.
Oshiomhole also responded to criticism by one of the APC presidential aspirants Alhaji Mumakai Unagha, who said the APC could not win under his leadership.
He said such “cooked narratives” could only come from those who failed to impose their preferred candidates on the party during the nomination process.
“The crime committed by Oshiomhole’s leadership is its disdain for impunity and circumvention of due process perpetrated in some of the states at the pleasure of some influential stakeholders.
“These influential stakeholders, according to grapevine, have begun to mobilise to pass a no-confidence vote on the leadership of Oshiomhole, having failed to impose their preferred candidates on the party in the nomination process,” he said.
He said history would justify his efforts and that posterity would vindicate him as he and other party leaders moved to achieve the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari in the presidential election scheduled for February 16, 2019.
He urged those who lost out in the party primaries to imbibe the spirit of sportsmanship, bolstered by the fact that his leadership was propelled more by its interest in propriety in which victory for the party could be grounded.
