Salihu Lukman, director-general of Progressive Governors
Forum, has asked the party’s national executive committee (NEC) to appoint a
new national chairman to replace Adams Oshiomhole.
On Wednesday, an Abuja high court ordered the suspension of
Oshiomhole as chairman pending the determination of a substantive suit seeking
his removal but, on Thursday, another high court in Kano issued an interim
order halting his suspension.
In a statement on Friday, Lukman said retaining Oshiomhole
as the APC national chairman might cost the party governorship tickets in the
forthcoming elections in Edo, Ondo and Anambra states.
“First, pending the settlement of all the cases around
Oshiomhole’s membership, we need to invoke provisions of Article 17 (vi) which
provide that in the event of a vacancy, ‘the relevant party organ shall appoint
another person to act in his place pending ratification by the National
Convention or Congress,” he said.
“The relevant party organ, in this case, may have to be the
NEC. Combinations of majority of the remaining members of the NWC in
consultation with President Buhari, Governors, other party leaders who are
leading members of the National Caucus can resolve all these issues and convene
the NEC to appoint an Acting National Chairman.
He said the party is in a mess because of the way the
Oshiomhole-led NWC members constituted “themselves into an unaccountable
assembly with a thuggish temperament, which seeks to browbeat every member of
the party especially aspiring candidates into submission”.
“Whether we want to accept it or not, we today found
ourselves with the embarrassing situation whereby almost all the structures of
the party have been frozen at all levels,” he said.
He said it would be inadvisable if the Oshiomhole-led NWC
conducts the Edo, Ondo and Anambra governorship primary elections with all the
challenges on the ground.
He added that it would be reckless of any politician to
aspire to contest on the platform of the party with Oshiomhole as the national
chairman.
He said: “It is important to ask the question, assuming in
all of these, Oshiomhole remained as the National Chairman and proceed to
organise primary elections for Edo, Ondo, and Anambra, how advantageous will
that be to APC?
“Let us also assume for the purpose of analysis that
undisputed candidates emerge from the primaries in which no one within the
party is contesting the results.
“Whether those undisputed candidates include Governors
Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN of Ondo State is
immaterial. The Zamfara and Bayelsa judicial cloud would appear to have already
gathered with any opposition party led by PDP just positioned to harvest what
will come with such clouds.
“Given such reality, it will be foolhardy for any upright
thinking politician to aspire to contest on the platform of the party with
Oshiomhole as the National Chairman. The only possible remedy will be if
Comrade Oshiomhole is able to humble himself and go back to the root cause of
the problem and resolve it.”
He asked Oshiomhole to “humble himself and go back to his
roots and resolve all the causes of the problem”.
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Oga Salihu Lukman, it is not Oshiomole that will make APC to lose the election in Ondo. Before now, APC has lost the election due to the incompetencies and insensitivity of the current governor- Akeredolu,
ReplyDeleteHe did nothing in the state. So, don't blame your anticipated lost on Oshiomole.