The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, on Sunday raised the alarm over what he described as a plot against him by unnamed party stakeholders.
The alarm was sequel to news reports that some high-ranking party stakeholders including some close associates of President Muhammadu Buhari and some unnamed state governors were plotting to ease him out.
Oshiomhole alleged that the stakeholders were mostly party members who were uncomfortable with his “positive” reforms.
Oshiomhole’s allegations were contained in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Simon Ebebgulem, in Abuja on Sunday.
According to him, the position of such stakeholders was recently given a voice via pronouncements made by a former APC presidential aspirant, Alhaji Mumakai Unagha.
Unagha was quoted as saying that the APC would not win the 2019 general elections with Adams Oshiomhole as national chairman.
Oshiomhole said the APC National Working Committee under his leadership was working tirelessly towards repositioning the party towards achieving greater successes.
He said, “The totality of Unagha’s claims, without necessarily addressing them one after the other, tallies with cooked-up narratives being sponsored by some influential stakeholders in their respective states that Comrade Oshiomhole is responsible for all the problems in the APC at the moment.
“These influential stakeholders, according to the grapevine, have begun to mobilise to pass a no-confidence vote in the leadership of Oshiomhole, having failed to impose their preferred candidates on the party in the nomination process.”
Oshiomhole said he did not become the national chairman of the governing party to bring it down a notch from the pedestal of its 2015 electoral victory let alone to preside over its liquidation.
The party chairman vowed to deploy his capacity to help strengthen and reposition the party as “a truly supreme and disciplined political entity.”
The statement read in part, “Although, it might appear fortuitous to some persons that he became national chairman at the threshold of the 2019 general elections; the truth is that there is no accident in predestination.
“The purpose has begun to manifest in its vast flourish and ramifications: instilling discipline, ensuring party supremacy, promoting due process, dealing with impunity and executive arrogance wherever they manifest to undermine intra-party electoral processes in the states.
“It is sad that while the national chairman is working round the clock, some stakeholders have thrown selfish political agendas into the mix to threaten the building of institutional capacity for the APC
“Rather than resort to needless perfidy at the threshold of general elections, we call on them to imbibe the spirit of sportsmanship, bolstered by the fact that the Oshiomhole leadership is propelled more by its interest in propriety in which victory for the party could be grounded. The crime committed by Comrade Oshhiomhole’s leadership is its disdain for impunity and circumvention of due process perpetrated in some of the states at the pleasure of some influential stakeholders.”
Oshiomhole’s handling of the recently concluded APC primaries across the nation drew criticisms from some of the party’s aggrieved stakeholders, including the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari.
Mrs Buhari did not hide her disappointment as she took to her twitter handle to vent her anger. Others who were not pleased with Oshiomhole over the handling of the primaries in their states included the Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari, and the Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, among others.
