By Emeka Alex Duru
If the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, eventually goes down from his high office in the days ahead, not many would be surprised. It would rather be seen as amplifying the saying that ‘there can never be a perfect conspiracy; conspirators usually turn against one another in the absence of a common enemy’. Almost two years ago by this time, the former Edo governor, had been prodded and planted on the APC as the best thing to have happened to the party, since its inauguration in 2014. In the ecstasy that had trailed his virtual imposition, the APC Convention scheduled for Saturday, June 23, 2018, turned out a mere formality as the outcome had already been known, three weeks, beforehand. And he eventually clinched the position.
Oyegun leaves, Oshiomhole comes
The controversial withdrawal of the then National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, from going for a re-election, was all that was needed to clear the coast for Oshiomhole, touted to be President Muhammadu Buhari’s favourite. Oyegun, who had read the writing on the wall, strategically pulled out of the race on Friday, June 1, 2018, claiming doing so in the interest of the party. He had stressed that though he would have loved taking another shot at the office, he was opting out so as not to be part of the problems confronting the party.
“I do not intend to be part of the problem for APC to solve. It is for this reason that I hereby declare that I will not be seeking re-election as the national chairman”, Oyegun remarked. That was all that was needed to foist the erstwhile Labour leader on the ruling party.
APC loses grounds
But just as Oyegun had foreseen, APC has been enmeshed in crisis at various levels since the enthronement of Oshiomhole. Issues unsettling the party border mainly on absence of internal democracy, imposition of candidates at elections and opaque leadership at the centre. At the last count, the APC which had come to power in 2015 by upstaging the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after 16 years of being in the saddle, has been losing out even in states that had been regarded as its strongholds. The party had in 2014, taken away Adamawa, Bauchi, Sokoto, Plateau, Benue, Katsina, Kaduna, Niger, Kogi, Zamfara, among others from the PDP. Under Oshiomhole, it has lost Bauchi, Sokoto, Benue, Adamawa and lately, Bayelsa. It managed to retain Kano and Osun in controversial circumstances. Most of the states were lost on grounds that many considered bordering on leadership failure. Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal and his Benue counterpart, Samuel Ortom, were for instance, forced out of APC to PDP on account of the dictatorial tendencies in the party. The party literally gave away Rivers and Zamfara to the PDP following crisis resulting from the governorship primaries in the states that produced parallel lists of candidates, each not sanctioned by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Based on Court pronouncements, the party lost both states from the legislature to the governorship.
Bayelsa goes to PDP
In Bayelsa, the APC lost out in an election it had earlier won based on Supreme Court’s pronouncement that it fielded a deputy governorship candidate that had identity crisis. The Apex Court had nullified the election of David Lyon and his deputy, Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo, who were already preparing to be inaugurated into office on Friday, February 14.
A Federal High Court in Abuja, had on November 12, 2019 disqualified Lyon’s running mate, Degi-Eremienyo in the election for submitting forged certificates INEC. The judgement was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that Degi-Eremienyo’s disqualification had infected the joint ticket with which he and the governorship candidate, Lyon, ran for and won the November 16, 2019.
The five-man panel of the Court led by Justice Mary Peter-Odili ordered INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return issued to the APC candidates as the winners of the November 2019 governorship election in the state.
It ordered INEC to issue fresh certificates to the candidates of the party with the next highest votes and with the required constitutional spread of votes in the results of the election. That was how the PDP and its candidate, Douye Diri, became the eventual winners of the poll.
Party chieftains move against Oshiomhole
For obviously distraught APC chieftain, the Bayelsa fiasco was the height of indiscretion by the Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party. They were miffed that the National Chairman and his team did not do due diligence on the candidates they fielded for election. Oshiomhole’s colleague in Labour leadership, Peter Esele, is among those upset by the dwindling fortunes of the APC. In a report during the week, he was quoted to have argued that Oshiomhole cannot claim ignorance that the Deputy Gubernatorial candidate of the Party in Bayelsa State was ineligible to contest the election which led to the Supreme Court verdict.
Esele added, “His utterances about national issues have become a huge source of embarrassment to the party and the country at large. The APC as the governing party must do all it can to defend the institutions of the state no matter the pain or interests. Failure to do so is a recipe for anarchy”. Like other concerned members of the party, he was of the opinion that it was time for Oshiomhole to go.
But by far the most daring affront to Oshiomhole’s stay in office, was a march by a group of protesters who stormed the APC secretariat in Abuja demanding his removal.
The protesters under the aegis of Concerned APC Youths, on Monday, February 17, 2020, were demanding that Oshiomhole should be removed from the office of the national chairman because the party has lost more states under him, the most recent being Bayelsa State. They carried various placards with inscriptions calling for his sack.
How far can Oshiomhole go?
The case by those asking for Oshiomhole’s head, is that he lacks the discipline and temperament required to offer leadership at the national level. Some particularly accuse him of attempting to transpose his fiery labour union antics to APC leadership, not knowing that the two platforms are not the same. Coming at a time when the chairman narrowly escaped plots by state chairmen of the party to oust him, recently, the days ahead may be quite dicey for him.