Buhari cracks Tinubu’s stronghold in APC, offers Oshiomhole ministerial appointment

The Cold War lingering between President Muhammadu Buhari and the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is getting deeper and more sophisticated.National Dailylearned that the two party leaders may have been subtly promoting the parochial interests of their respective legacy party bloc – the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), respectively – within the broad APC platform, but in the open, they disguise that all is well in the decision of who gets what, when, and how much from the APC government and party structure. They were said to be covertly working in opposite direction.

National Dailylearned that in a new initiative to consolidate the APC for the 2023 transition, in which the APC national leader, Tinubu, is perceived to have intention of contesting for president of the country on the party’s platform, President Buhari may have tentatively been scheming to take away the party structure from Tinubu’s loyalists in the APC leadership.

There are insinuations that the APC National Working Committee (NWC) is on target in an alleged plan to overhaul the party structure. Part of the planned overhaul, National Daily learned, is to reassign the APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, to a ministerial duty and take him away from the party leadership. Oshiomhole has in the series of conflicts in the ruling APC been perceived to be aligning with the APC national leader, Tinubu, thus, giving advantages to the ACN power bloc in the party, while the CPC, ANPP and other minor blocs are being diminished in pieces.

The CPC and ACN have been working on the power sharing formula that while CPC has the president, the ACN has the national chairman of the party in addition to the vice president. The journey to 2023 is already generating tension in APC as the ACN now aspires for the president.

Oshiomhole encountered the first plot to remove him when the APC Deputy National Chairman North, Senator Lawal Shuaibu, had in June told the APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, to resign, citing poor leadership that cost the party electoral misfortunes in Zamfara, Rivers and some other states in the 2019 general elections.

Shuaibu had protested that APC lost governorship elections, national and state assembly elections in most states because Oshiomhole’s lack of leadership capacity. The matter is yet to be resolved, though, Oshiomhole has been running from pillar to pole across the country mobilizing support for vote of confidence on his leadership. The party has also not been able to sanction Shuaibu for his outburst even after he ignored and questioned the invitation of a disciplinary panel set by the APC national chairman; indicating leadership stalemate in the APC.

Shuaibu’s protest and agitation was reinforced by the former APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, who stated that APC NWC traded with the party’s primary elections for the 2019 general elections.

National Dailylearned that Oyegun in a counter argument that he created the foundation of the crisis in APC, had declared:  “It is common knowledge that Oshiomhole ran the most fraudulent primaries in the history of politics in Nigeria. Recall that INEC said so when it adjudged Oshiomhole primaries as the worst so far. The courts are saying the same thing today by upturning many APC primaries for being undemocratic and less than fair. Was it Oyegun who ran the primaries?”

Moreover, another member of the APC NWC, the National Legal Adviser, Babatunde Ogala, had in 2018 written to Oshiomhole, cautioning him of usurping his powers to handle legal matters in the party.

National Daily further learned that several APC stalwarts have expressed that it is an irony that NWC members who ought to be reporting to the party national chairman confront Oshiomhole on his leadership incompetence and high handedness with astute boldness and confidence.

All these were said to have provided the President the lacuna in the affairs of the ruling APC to consider some reforms which in the ultimate denouement could eliminate some forces loyal to Tinubu.

A report indicated that some APC leaders disclosed that in the planned restructuring, some NWC members may be relieved of their party leadership roles and be reassigned to the federal cabinet on ministerial and other appointments.

It was alleged that some of those President Buhari may be considering for ministerial and other appointments include APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole from Edo State; Deputy National Chairman South, Chief Niyi Adebayo from Ekiti State, and APC National Auditor, Chief George Moghalu from Anambra State.

National Daily also learned that of the APC 21 NWC members, about 12 members may be eliminated from the party’s administrative leadership for appointment as ministers, ambassadors, advisers and others.

The President was, however, said to be playing safe in the grand plan, while, the national chairman and others were considered to have the option of acceptance or rejection of the appointments. Some other party leaders were of the view that any rejection of the ministerial offer may spark monumental crisis in the party in a prospective renewed struggle for the removal of the national chairman.