An Abuja High Court ruling Wednesday, ordering the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, to obey his suspension by his ward in Edo State, opened the fault lines of the ruling party, pitching its governors against their national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu. Tinubu is known to have installed Oshiomhole and has been his back bone, shielding him from the party’s ambitious state chief executives who see the national chairman as a stumbling block to their 2023 presidential ambitions. With the court ruling, believed to have been procured by proxy by the governors, analysts close to the power play in the party, say the stage is set for an epic battle with Tinubu, believed, however, to have the ears of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Long before Oshiomhole finished his second term as governor of Edo State; it was obvious that the position of APC National Chairman occupied by his kinsman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, was awaiting him. President Buhari, while on an official visit to commission some projects embarked upon by the then outgoing governor, had said based on the work done in the state, Edo people should please loan the former labor leader to the Federal Government for another work at the centre.
No sooner had Buhari made the remark than words started flying around that owing to the need to have a strong character lead the party to the forthcoming electoral battle against the former ruling party that was dethroned in 2015, the comrade governor had been penciled to succeed Oyegun. In July 2018, that promise was fulfilled, as the presidency conspired with other APC bigwigs, to clear all hurdles for Oshiomhole to mount the saddle as the second substantive national chairman of the ruling party. To ensure Oshiomhole’s emergence, the party’s big men resolved that Oyegun should not seek another term in office as national chairman, even as other eligible aspirants, particularly another former Edo State governor, Prof. Osarheimen Osunbor and former Cross River State governor, Clement Ebiri, were muzzled and arm-twisted to shelve their ambitions.
After succumbing to pressures on him to withdraw from the contest, Prof. Osunbor visited Oshiomhole on Wednesday, June 19, 2018, to inform him of his decision. Sources close to Osunbor confided to Huhuonline.com that, while assuring the incoming national chairman that I “never joined the race for chairmanship to fight you,” Osunbor declared: “I appreciate the relationship which has existed between your family and mine over the years. I do not want this to destroy our relationship. I am happy the president is with you and the majority of our party leaders are with you, and I have great respect for Mr. President.” Osunbor was quoted as saying Oshiomhole had the experience to lead the party to the next level, adding, “I can tell you that by Saturday you may go for that election unopposed so that we will not go and start counting votes that will take us for too long. I congratulate you and I will work to ensure you succeed.”
But barely a year in office, calls for Oshiomhole to resign became a popular singsong among the party faithful, following what the rank and file described as his highhandedness and double standards in the running of party affairs. Failing to resolve the plethora of parallel state congresses that preceded the National Convention that produced him, Oshiomhole created his own round of problems by his unilateral decision to order state chapters to adopt direct or indirect primaries to select party flag bearers. It was not rocket science as it became clear that the indirect and direct primaries were Oshiomhole’s trump card to favor his preferred candidates and punish others, especially incumbents that were not in his good books or those of his godfathers.
For instance, despite objections from some party faithful to the use of the direct primary method in Osun due to the nebulous membership register, Oshiomhole insisted. At the end of the day, some party leaders, including the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yussuf Lasun, walked out of the process. While the issue of parallel congresses roiled the state, a major problem broke out when the Deputy National Chairman, Senator Lawal Shuaibu, wrote the national chairman, asking him to resign on account of his incompetence.
In the letter titled: “APC: Its fortunes versus misfortune, time to act,” Shuaibu said Oshiomhole lacked the composure to lead the party, adding that APC under his watch “had become badly fractured in virtually every constituency in the country and was fast losing the goodwill it enjoyed before Oshiomhole’s emergence.” However, some state chairmen came to Oshiomhole’s defense, claiming that the hiccups in the party were caused by the booby traps left by the former national chairman, Oyegun, which made it impossible for the incumbent to operate. But Oyegun countered in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Ray Murphy; that Oshiomhole’s failings stemmed from the fact that “he lacks the temperament that is required to run a political party. He lacks the capacity to manage the different interests and tendencies that constitute a political party. He engages his mouth before engaging his mind; so he offends party members.”
As the schemes for 2023 gather momentum, it is obvious that Oshiomhole’s decision to take on state governors on the APC’s platform is proving to be his Achilles heels, particularly when the governors constitute the garrison commanders of the party with their army of foot soldiers and supporters. In trying to ride roughshod over the state governors in the false belief that the might of the presidency that propelled him to the chairmanship position was still at his behest, Oshiomhole stands to pay the price of history. As Americans would say, what begins by dividing continues to divide.
The battle for survival for Oshiomhole seems to have begun, particularly given his domestic firefight with his home governor, Godwin Obaseki. Although Oshiomhole’s instant problem arose from his quarrel with the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, Huhuonline.com learnt that the beleaguered national chairman might have unwittingly allowed the local affair to be taken advantage of by national forces, which see him as a stumbling block to their presidential aspirations in 2023.
Little surprise Obaseki was joyous last night, saying the court ruling had brought peace to Edo State.
Addressing APC members during the Edo South senatorial rally of the party in Benin City, the state capital, Obaseki stated that when they planned the rally last week, they did not know that God had a plan for them yesterday. “No man is God. God is God. No man can play God. With what God has done today… what we should do now is to just thank Him,” he said, adding: “The meaning of what happened today is that peace has now finally come to our party. The purpose of God for Nigeria in our party will now be fulfilled.”
Analysts in the know of the power game said the court ruling suspending Oshiomhole, only ventilated the fault lines of the APC and appears set to reopen windows of opportunities for contending forces to reengage and realign in their bid to grab the soul of the party ahead of the 2023 presidential election. The suspension of Oshiomhole has also undoubtedly altered the political permutations and calculations in Edo ahead of this year’s gubernatorial election. It would be recalled that a battle line had been drawn between Oshiomhole and Governor Obaseki, with both camps employing different ploys to assert their supremacy and decide who emerges the party’s flagbearer in the upcoming election.
It was at the crescendo of the intrigues that Obaseki pulled the masterstroke of getting Oshiomhole suspended from the party at the ward, local government and state levels, a development that formed the basis for the suspension order. There had been insinuations that the Oshiomhole camp had perfected arrangements to upstage Obaseki and ensure that he does not get a rerun ticket. In turn, Governor Obaseki’s camp had also been reportedly pondering the way out of the likely debacle, what with news that made the rounds that the incumbent had been courting the opposition party as part of measures to forestall being caught unawares. But with the suspension, it is now clear that Oshiomhole cannot even preside over the primaries; and the order may have cleared the road of all obstacles for Obaseki’s emergence as the party’s candidate in the gubernatorial elections.
Meanwhile, with Oshiomhole insisting he remains the APC national chairman as per the decision of the Kano High court, the ruling party may likely face a tough challenge, which might create serious challenges for the party if not carefully managed. Even without Oshimhole, the crisis in the Southwest APC over who succeeds the immediate Deputy National Chairman (Southwest), Otunba Niyi Adebayo, who is now Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, is still fresh as a member of the party from Ekiti, Akinleye Michael, has dragged the APC to court over the surreptitious arrangements by the leadership and elders of the zone to move the deputy national chairman’s slot from Ekiti, with the decision to give it to, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, a former governor of Oyo State.
Akinleye had filed a motion restraining APC Southwest National Vice Chairman, APC Southwest Caucus, Ekiti State chairman of APC and Ekiti State Caucus from forwarding the name of Sen. Abiola Ajimobi or any other name to the National Chairman, National Working Committee and APC, to fill the vacant office of the deputy national chairman of APC, South, having not followed due process as enshrined in Articles 17 and 20 of APC Constitution 2014, as amended, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.
It would be recalled that the leaders of Southwest APC at a meeting in State House, Marina, Lagos, decided to move the deputy national chairman slot from Ekiti to Oyo, but members of Ekiti State have kicked against the move, saying, “Under no circumstances would they allow the slot to be taken to Oyo.”
It was specifically reported that Governor Kayode Fayemi and Senator Ibikunle Amosun, who were present at the elders’ caucus meeting in Lagos, rejected the motive behind the move, which hints at the 2023 presidential ambition of some individuals who want to use Ajimobi should Oshiomhole be forced out permanently. Whether the purported nomination of Sen. Ajimobi as the deputy national chairman of APC, South, was done in line with the provision of Article 17 of APC Constitution, 2014, as amended, and the established customs and practices of APC. The development in the Southwest zone has left the position of the deputy national chairman (Southwest) vacant.
Perhaps, matters would have easily been resolved in Oshiomhole’s absence following his suspension if the situation hadn’t been worsened by the continued suspension of the Deputy National Chairman, North, Senator Lawali Shuaibu since June 2019 following his critical position against Oshiomhole. The two vacant positions (deputy national chairman South and North) would definitely create a vacuum should the suspension of the former governor of Edo State as APC national chairman pronounced by the court stands. The National Vice Chairman (Northwest) Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir has also been forced out of office following his suspension at the same time with Shuaibu. The National Vice Chairman Northeast, Mustapha Salihu is also not at ease with Oshiomhole and had indeed had disagreements with the embattled national chairman.
As a matter of fact, more than half of APC governors are said to have made up their minds that the national chairman must leave for peace to return to the party. This is more so since his staunch supporter, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at whose instance he emerged as national chairman in 2018 is allegedly out of tune with him. A source intimated Huhuonline.com that Tinubu must have seen the handwriting on the wall, which made the national leader be rooting for Ajimobi to step in as deputy national chairman (South) recently. But Fayemi, Amosun, and others, especially members of Ekiti PDP vehemently resisted the agenda as an imposition. It remains to be seen whether Ajimobi who is now the purported APC acting national chairman will defy the forces aligning against him and hang on to power. For now, the lesson Oshiomhole must learn is that what goes around, comes around; as Chief Oyegun seems to be having the final laugh.
