Former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has pleaded with Progressive Governors to stand with Edo State governor Godwin Obaseki against Adams Oshiomhole whose actions may lead to political misfortunes for the party.
Oshiomhole and Obaseki have, for the past five weeks, been locked in a battle for supremacy. The tussle has been over the “secret” inauguration of the state House of Assembly by 10 out of 24 members and the side-lining of lawmakers loyal to Oshiomhole in the selection of its principal officers. On the purported prompting of the APC national chairman, the House of Representatives has sought to take over the state House of Assembly.
“I want to urge Oshiomhole to stop disgracing the ruling party and the good people of Edo State,” Odigie-Oyegun said in a statement issued in Abuja this Sunday. “I wonder how he could easily forget that I never interfered or bothered about how he ran the government as the then governor of Edo State all the while I occupied the position of the party’s national chairman.”
Accusing his successor of vilifying and destabilizing the Obaseki administration, Odigie-Oyegun said: “The recent outburst by Governor Obaseki and the report by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee indicting the current national chairman of the APC have confirmed my earlier claim that Oshiomhole is not only the architect but also responsible for fuelling the crisis in Edo State.”
The octogenarian, who was Edo State governor in the early 1990s, addressed the current APC chairman thus: “I am yet to come to terms as to why it has become difficult for Oshiomhole to realize that Governor Obaseki is the only APC governor in the entire south-south and should be allowed to concentrate in giving the people of Edo the dividends of democracy.
“It is shocking that a man who boastfully claimed to have buried godfatherism in the Edo State politics could become enmeshed in playing God to his successor. Oshiomhole is not only guilty of godfatherism but also guilty of anti-party activities, considering the ignoble role he has been playing and his shameful involvement in the whole Edo crisis.
“Rather than dissipating energy in fomenting more crises, Oshiomhole should rather concentrate o
Many other leaders of the APC have expressed fears similar to Odigie-Oyegun’s. A crusade to remove Oshiomhole as national chairman of the ruling party has been building up.
