Exploring Oshiomhole-Led APC Crisis
POLITICS DIGEST – The leadership crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) took a dangerous dimension on Friday as the hitherto cold war was blown open when supporters and antagonists of the party’s National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, stormed the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja to show their solidarity and opposition respectively.
There had been calls for Oshiomhole to resign in some quarters but those who want him to remain in office had been urging him on. Demanding for the sustenance of Oshiomhole’s stay in office, the supporters, under the platform of Unity Group of the party staged the counter protest against an earlier demonstration, which was demanding the removal of the national chairman.
Two different groups had earlier in the week called for the resignation of the APC National Chairman on account of bad leadership. The first was Young APC Stakeholders Forum and the second, FCT APC Residents Youths.
The two protests were observed and monitored by security agents. The messages of the protesters that stormed the National Secretariat in the early days of Monday and Tuesday were the same: “Oshiomhole must go” and “Oshiomhole must resign.
According to one of the sponsors, who is a National Executive Committee member, the demand for Oshiomhole’s resignation is absolute and total.
He explained that 80 per cent of the APC governors, a large number of the National Working Committee (NWC) members and the Presidency are behind the call for Oshiomhole’s resignation.
He alleged that the APC National Chairman’s embarrassment to the party was one too many. According to him, the National Chairman does not understand that he is leading a political party in a democratic setting.
“For instance, the statement that nobody would be sworn in as a governor in Bayelsa State after the Supreme judgement was an embarrassment to the party,” he said.
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The party member argued that the situation that brought about the nullification of the APC governorship victory in Bayelsa State was caused by the APC National Chairman, just like that of Zamfara.
However, on Friday, another group decked in different uniforms trouped to the APC National Secretary in Abuja in buses with placards of various inscriptions, stating their demand for the continued stay in office of the national chairman.
Addressing journalists, the leader of one of the anti- Oshiomhole groups, Yunusa Yusuf, said the former labour leader must go because of hiinterference with the party’s affairs across the country, alleging that it was as a result of his interference that President Muhammadu Buhari lost election in the FCT.
He said: “Oshiomhole had caused disunity in the party and responsible for the losses of the party and all the problems facing the party. So many of us were aggrieved to the extent that before the election last year, we had to leave the party.
“I am one of such people who left the party before the election, Due to his impunity, we were forced out of the party to join another party and worked for another party, because we were politically rendered irrelevant.
Another supporter of the call for Oshiomhole’s exit is a chieftain of the APC in Edo State, Adaze Emwanta, who spoke on Channels Television while insisting that the national chairman must go.
He said: “He should go because he had made the party to lose most of its states. Look at Sokoto State, because of the crisis created by Oshiomhole, the party lost the state to the PDP. Not just Sokoto, but also Benue and Zamfara among others.
“So having lost these numbers of states, it is natural that the national leadership should have been rejigged. So, at the moment the national chairman of the party should step aside. And I think it is in the interest of democracy that Adams Oshiomhole should step aside.
“How many states will the party lose before they remove the man who obviously was responsible for the dwindling fortunes of the party?” He queried.
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