*Timi Frank blasts party chairman
Whether the APC will sacrifice the Senate presidency—as proclaimed by party chairman John Oyegun last weekend—or not is splitting the ruling party as its deputy national publicist, Timi Frank, said that position was Oyegun’s—not the party’s.
“That the chairman of the ruling party will grant an interview on his personal opinion and asserting it to be the decision of the party, can at best be described as unfortunate and a carefully mapped out plan to rubbish the current trial of the Senate President,” Frank said in a statement on Sunday.
He was referring to the interview Oyegun granted Premium Times Saturday in which he said it’s a welcome development if change will come by the APC watching its man, Sen. President Bukola Saraki, go down in his CCT corruption trial, and the PDP producing his successor.
“Change means allowing the law to take the proper course. I can tell you the President won’t interfere. The President is definite, straight and firm in all facets,” Oyegun told the online newspaper.
But Frank, believed by some party watchers as an unabashed supporter of Saraki, said the party’s hierarchy, including the National Working Committee, the National Executive Council, and the Board of Trustees have never met or taken any decision on sacrificing the Senate presidency.
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“This move [Oyegun’s] undoubtedly proves once more that the Chairman is acting on an already prepared script to incarcerate and make the Senate President pay for his disobedience for not adhering to the party’s decision in contesting for the seat of the Senate President,” Frank added.
It’s not certain whether the party’s deputy publicity secretary can now speaking for his party either. The chairman had said in the interview that Frank is a character whose loyalty to the party has got a big question mark.
That apart, Oyegun said the national publicity post in the party has been zoned to the north central, and it’s been vacant since the former publicity secretary, Lai Mohammed, got a leg-up to Aso Rock.
That won’t be strange to Frank anyway. He had said earlier that the ruling party has been divided down the middle. He, however, described that as laughable, saying the party constitution is clear in the event of a vacuum created by the exit of a substantive officer.
But he reminded the APC of the role Saraki played in the party’s victory in the 2015 polls.
“If Chief Oyegun believes Senator Saraki should be the scapegoat for the ruling party, owing to his confirmation of bias in the ongoing trial of the senate president, then indeed the chairman has to be reminded that history has its way of repeating itself and reminding those who take it for granted when it beckons.” Frank said.