APC Crisis: Oshiomhole  may replace Oyegun

• As members push for national convention

As the lingering in­ternal crises continue to rock the ruling All Pro­gressives Congress (APC) threatens to splinter the party, the top hierarchy of the party has decided to sacrifice its national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.

This tactical move to ease out the APC’s National Chair­man is seen as an interim meas­ure to stabilize the ruling par­ty and save it from imploding.

Impeccable sources explained that the outgoing Edo State gov­ernor, Comrade Adams Osh­iomhole, whose second-term as governor ends on the 12th November, 2016, has been pen­ciled down to replace embattled Oyegun as the party’s national chairman.

To firm up this ‘coup’ against Oyegun, which has the presidency’s backing, President Muhammadu Buha­ri has agreed to a “face saving” ambassadorial position for the out-of-favour Oyegun.

Party Sources confirmed that, “there is no going back on the decision”.

Rightly or wrong­ly, Oyegun who guided the APC to victory over the PDP has been accused of “killing” the party.

The choice of Comrade Os­hiomhole stems from the fact that, like Oyegun, he is from the South-South geo-political zone – with the clincher that he has a solid labour background.

By a convenient coincidence for the APC, Oshiomhole’s ten­ure as governor will be ending in a matter of weeks.

Several party sources with knowledge about this devel­opment sounded out hope that Os­hiomhole will be able to build the APC into a formidable “pop­ulist” party, a “ party in every sense of the word.”

As a specific diversionary tactic and to create the condi­tion necessary for the scripted scenario to play out, Oyegun is expected to ‘resign’ – a quirky, cloned template of PDP succes­sion intrigues at play no doubt.

It will be recalled that fol­lowing the recent APC gov­ernorship primary election in Ondo State that produced a candidate who is not Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu’s choice, Tinu­bu openly called for Oyegun’s resignation, a position Oyegun dismissed out of hand.

According to a miffed Oye­gun, “Yes, I agree that the nature of the statement was a bit harsh. The methods of getting rid of a national chairman, if that is what I will call it, are spelt out in the constitution; they don’t take place on the pages of news­papers.”

Although Tinubu and Oye­gun shook hands and exchanged pleasantries during Buhari’s re­cent book launch in Abuja, their relationship appeared to have been irreparably damaged.

Apparently tipping the scale against Oyegun, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar re­cently expressed a public posi­tion which apparently backed Tinubu.

The Deputy National Pub­licity Secretary of the APC, Timi Frank, also recently ac­cused Oyegun of mismanaging the party, alleging that a lot of things have gone wrong in the APC because of Oyegun’s lead­ership style.

Frank, who described Oye­gun as a political liability, said what APC needs is a leader who will add political value to the party. He also slammed Oyegun, saying he does not understand the constitution of the APC.

According to Frank, “This is the reason why I will continue to fight to ensure that the APC takes Nigeria to the right place but as long as Odigie-Oyegun remains as national chairman, we cannot achieve anything.

“Now that I am calling for his resignation, some may think it is personal, but it is not.

“We need a national chair­man that will add political value to our party, we need a national chairman that can lead the party to victory during elections and we do not need a national chair­man who will clearly be a polit­ical liability to this party as we head towards elections.

“We need a national chair­man that will understand and follow due process in carrying out functions within the party. We need a chairman who un­derstands the constitution in words and in deed.”

But cogent posers are al­ready emerging that could af­fect the smoothness of this dodgy succession plot. The key question here is – would Oye­gun who has the reputation of a plucky fighter agree to resign?
Already, the ruling party has unforeseen challenges re­placing its national publicity secretary Lai Mohammed.

This medium gathered that the plan to replace him with former sports minister under President Goodluck Jonathan, Alhaji Bolaji Abdullahai, was aborted by forces opposed to the emerging strangle-hold of Senate President Bukola Sara­ki on the party. Bolaji Abdula­hi is a protégé of Saraki.

From what is apparently playing out, the APC is thread­ing the now opposition PDP’s path. It will be recalled that Chief Solomon Lar, who guid­ed the party to victory, was sim­ilarly replaced by Chief Barna­bas Gemade.

Many have not forgotten that the PDP has not recovered from that ugly beginning.

This medium also gathered that Oyegun is ready for a vicious battle against Ambassador Babagana King­ibe, who is presently working as an “Executive Assistant” to the controversial and powerful Chief of Staff to President Bu­hari, Alhaji Abba Kyari .

Kingibe was running mate to Chief MKO Abiola, the ac­claimed winner of the annulled June 12 presidential election.

He is widely perceived to have been one of the key insid­er forces that aided the trade-off of Abiola’s acclaimed and historic Muslim-Muslim tick­et victory.

Kingibe is campaigning for the position of Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations.

For Odigie-Oyegun to leave office, the APC NWC must bow to the demands of several par­ty stakeholders and groups to organise an emergency Nation­al Executive Council (NEC) meeting or a mini convention, where all the permutations on the enthronement of Oshiom­hole and Abdulahi as well as other vacant NWC positions may be ratified.

For example, some non-NWC members of the NEC had last week issued a two-week ul­timatum to the Odigie-Oyegun led NWC to convene an emer­gency NEC meeting to discuss the many issues rocking the unity of the APC.

The group in a commu­nique issued at the end of its meeting in Abuja and signed by Hon. Omolaoye O. Akinto­la, National Ex-Officio, South West and Coordinator, not­ed, with regret, the inability of the NWC under Odigie-Oye­gun to convene the quarterly NEC meeting as contained in the party’s constitution.

The APC constitution states clearly that only the NEC or party convention can ratify the choice of any national officer.