On call for Oshiomhole’s resignation

When the All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed in February 2013, not a few pundits speculated that it would be a party that epitomizes all that its chief opponent, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), represented: solid, devoid of   unnecessary rancor and controversy, cohesive and transparent   in all its intra-party affairs.  After more than six years […]

When the All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed in February 2013, not a few pundits speculated that it would be a party that epitomizes all that its chief opponent, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), represented: solid, devoid of   unnecessary rancor and controversy, cohesive and transparent   in all its intra-party affairs.  After more than six years of its formation, we now know better. Today the party has become a platform for mockery, a shadow of itself, not even to be envied by its enemies. It is now becoming a scattered broom which sticks have been chopped at their tips by over-sweeping.  While some believe that its problem is characteristic of all parties in their formative stage, many blame it  squarely on the present crisis,  leadership wrongheadedness, self-centeredness and incompetence.

Perhaps never in the six-year-old history of the party has it been characterized by the level of disunity   as it is of the moment. Lion share of this blame is placed on the leadership style of the former governor of Edo state and Chairman of the party, Mr. Adam Oshiohmole.  Mr Oshiomhole   is not your ordinary politician.   His style of leadership has brought it chest-to-chest with the members, and helped to get the party enmeshed   in needless controversies with chieftains and members many of whom have worked hard to build the party.   The chairman has been accused of several things including being autocratic, cantankerous, and   disrespectful to divergent opinion, and behaving like a pocket Nazi.  He had a brawl last year with some party governors who accused him of highhandedness;  Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on whom he unleashed his    verbal venom. He has also been accused of   allegedly receiving at least $55million in bribes before and after the party primaries all over the country, and   grilled by DSS operatives for nine hours.  The APC Chairman has denied all these accusations, and       thinks that he is being misunderstood and persecuted for his “reforms”.

Last week, Oshiomhole was again in the news after he was asked to resign by the Deputy National Chairman (North), Senator Lawal Shuaibu. This call is a fallout of the party primaries, which put Shuaibu’s state of  Zamfara in a very harrowing limbo for long until  its fate was sadly sealed by the  Supreme  court  judgment.  After tracing the genesis of the crisis,  Shuaibu wrote,   “ In that connection, therefore, I want to advise you to take the path of honour, to step aside and allow the party to embark on the onerous task of reconstruction and rehabilitation in those states it was weakened by the effect of the manner the last primary election exercises were conducted or even the task of recreating the party where it is on the path of extinction, arising from the loss of a sitting APC Government, for example in Zamfara State, where you directly personally created the problem leading to the painful complete loss of APC’s electoral fortunes.”

Even though the former governor has personally not said much yet, there have been mixed reactions from others, a lot of which is seemingly nothing but hatchet job. Senator Shuaibu   has had many supports, as well. These reactions expectedly will   continue in the next couple of weeks.

What is intriguing so far is how this issue is being given ethnic and zonal coloration, and   viewed   from the prisms of unproductive and sentimental politics. In a telephone interview with SUNDAY PUNCH, for instance,   the APC National Vice Chairman (South-South), Hilliard Eta, said Oshiomhole’s position as national chairman was not under threat, and added, that,  “the letter written by our deputy national chairman (North) was a personal opinion which he, like every member of our party, is entitled to.” He went  further  to add that if there was any decision we took as members of the National Working Committee which he was not comfortable with, the best thing for him to have done was to have resigned.

Towing the same line was the All Progressives Congress State Chairmen from the South-South who have asked the Deputy National Chairman, Lawal Shuaibu, to tender an unreserved apology to the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, within seven days. They even passed a vote of confidence on Oshiomhole.  Do they care about the substance of   Shuaibu’s letter?    Shuaibu’s  is not the accusation of the ordinary critique, but  that of  chieftain who is very particularly – and standing on locus – concerned   about   the fate of his state under the party and in the country itself.   That   Zamfara as a  state   which     contributed greatly to the president’s reelection  has lost its main party’s representation in the national  assembly and the governor of that state  is   mindboggling, and of course the leader under who this perfidy  had happened should be asked to  demonstrate a sense of  responsibility. Any attempt to pamper him, or outsource his political wrongheadedness to the previous leadership   is   deceitful and insulting to the collective interests of the party.

I do not think that what is playing out now in the party  is any personal   crisis between Shuaibu and the APC  national  chairman. It is simply a clash between preservation of the party’s fortunes    and the conscious squander of its image and potential.   Anyone who chooses to see it differently   may be getting it really wrong. You cannot sit over the affairs of a party as big as APC and simply refuse to disrobe   yourself of   that dated unionist leader toga. If    through administrative wrongheadedness, you have imposed your choice candidate on the people, and the repercussion has shown in this manner, be humble enough to admit your fault. The mere description by the APC Chairman of the judgment of the Supreme court on Zamfara, simply as imposition of   strangers is    ridiculously   cheap and smacks of self-guilt.  And by the way, more of the Shuaibus who would see a spade and not address it by another name is needed in the party.

Now if Adam Oshiomhole fails to hearken to Shuaibu’s call to resign (your guess about his decision being as good as mine) or choses to remain as stubborn and rigid as he is, the shame should not be on Shuaibu. It should be on the party and Oshiomhole.   In any case, this party is in dire need of repositioning itself to change the pattern of leadership envisaged by its founding members. It must ensure      cohesion, discipline, transparency and respect for peoples contributions to its growth.

 

Moses Edele wrote from No 22 Lugbe FHA, Abuja.