2019: I Won’t Preside Over Liquidation Of APC – Oshiomhole

Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, says he would not afford to let his party fail in the 2019 general elections let alone preside over its liquidation.

Oshiomhole spoke in Abuja on Sunday, alleging gang up by some undisclosed elements in the APC to pass a no confidence vote on him.

According to the APC national chairman who spoke through his Chief Press Secretary, Simon Ebebgulem, some unnamed elements in the party are frustrating his plans to re-position the party.

He however assured that the party under his leadership was in a safe hands as it marches, sure-footedly, to victory in the 2019 general election.

He dismissed the allegations in some quarters, “especially by one of the presidential aspirants on the platform of the party, Alhaji Mumakai Unagha, that the APC cannot win with Oshiomhole as unfair, denigrating and baleful of his persona and commitment to a rejuvenated winning machine that the APC typifies.

According to him, the 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 he is responsible for all the problems in the APC at the moment.

“These influential stakeholders, according to grapevine, he said have begun to mobilise to pass a no-confidence vote in his leadership, having failed to impose their preferred candidates on the party in the nomination process”, the statement said.

The statement which was obtained by BigPen Online reiterated; “Comrade Oshiomhole did not become 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.

He, rather said that his single-minded goal, from the outset of his declaration of interest in the position, was to deploy his capacity in helping to strengthen and reposition the party as a truly supreme and disciplined political entity.

According to him, his assumption of office at the threshold of the 2019 general election was not accidental but was destined by God for a purpose.

“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, he said.

“From the outset, we never expected that those who cherished and supported the status quo, which Comrade Oshiomhole supplanted, would cave in easily under the magnitude of the current political revival that he spearheads.

“Indeed, while the progressives are enamored of change, the conservatives find it difficult to embrace it. That is the current reality in the deliberate effort to rebrand the APC.

“Again, we were not, in the least, deluded that the process of rebranding or rewriting the narrative of the four-year old party would be easy. What we are witnessing in the APC today is Comrade Oshiomhole’s adroit management of the strains and pains that accompany the birth of a resuscitated governing party.

Oshiomhole also said that the outcome of the party’s primary elections and the large-scale integrity of the processes are developments that should hence serve as exemplars in the administration of governing parties.

“Indeed, the message therein is very clear that the party, and not pseudo political empires in the states, has the power to superintend the primary elections for the nomination of the party’s candidates in the general election.

“While the party will not surrender its functions, which are constitutionally circumscribed, to any other entities, it will always be ready to moderate the divergent tendencies and mediate the disparate political camps in the interest of party cohesion.

“This is one of the hardnosed truths that the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC preaches and practises with an apostolic zeal to the chagrin of some influential stakeholders in the states.

The former labour leader said that he was determined to build a party that its leadership and membership do not only submit to the high ideal of party supremacy but also the credo of party discipline.

These-party supremacy and discipline, according to him are two fundamentals that had been eroded even before the emergence of his leadership.

The statement further expressed displeasure 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 a general election, 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 Oshiomhole’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.

“Overall, Comrade Oshiomhole has not, since stepping in the saddle, taken any unilateral decision in the running of the party affairs.  All decisions, so far taken, passed through the mills of NWC deliberative sessions and enjoyed unanimous resolutions. The records are there. History will justify Comrade Oshiomhole and posterity will vindicate him”.