Vote of No Confidence : Oshiomhole Cries Out, Assures APC Of Victory In 2019

Amid rife speculation that some influential stakeholders of All
Progressives Congress ( APC) are plotting to pass a vote of no
confidence on its National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, the
embattled former governor of Edo State has assured his party of
victory in the 2019 general elections.

Comrade Oshiomhole on Sunday, assured that the party is in safe
hands and coasting to a resounding encore in 2019 general, victory
he said is the overarching mission of the APC National Working
Committee under his leadership.

The leadership of the party and particularly, its national
chairman has come severe criticism following the acrimonious
primary elections that has left the party fragmented in almost all
states of the federation and FCT, going into the 2019
elections.

Restating his mission to uproot impunity Oshiomhole cautioned
influential stakeholders of the party who he said are poised to
pass a vote of no confidence on him at the Eve of the 2019 election
, having failed to imposed their candidates on the party , to
imbibe the spirit of sportsmanship.

In a statement signed by Simeon Ebegbulem, Chief Press Secretary
to Oshiomhole, the APC national chairman said the party is marching
surefooted to victory.

He dismissed insinuations that the national chairman has come to
liquidate the party nor detract from its goals ahead of the 2019
polls but to put in the right frame to sustain its achievement.

The statement in part read:

“To be clear, 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.

“Rather, 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.

“Although, it might appear fortuitous to some persons that he
became national chairman at the threshold of the 2019 general
election; the truth is that there is no accident in
predestination.

“We must appreciate the fact that it has pleased the Almighty
God to place him in the saddle of APC leadership at this time for a
purpose”.

He said his emergence has begun to challenge executive arrogance
and unbridled impunity, a veiled reference to the powers hitherto
exercised state governors to the disadvantage of the party at the
center. Continuing he said :

“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.

“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.

“The leadership provided in the recently-held 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 warning that “the party will not surrender its functions,
which are constitutionally circumscribed, to any other entities,”
he said the leadership is “always 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.

“Comrade Oshiomhole envisions an APC that is capacitated to
pragmatically build a corpus of leadership and membership that do
not only submit to the high ideal of party supremacy but also the
credo of party discipline.

“These-party supremacy and discipline- are two fundamentals that
had been eroded even before the emergence of the Oshiomhole
leadership. 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.

“The suggestion 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 published at
page 42 of Saturday Vanguard of October 20, 2018, is therefore
unfair, denigrating and baleful of Comrade Oshiomhole’s persona and
commitment to a rejuvenated winning machine that the APC
typifies.

“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 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.

“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
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.

“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.

“Therefore, with eyes firmly fixed on the general election,
especially the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari in the
scheduled February 16 poll, Comrade Oshiomhole assures all
stakeholders in the APC of his respect for them. He assures them of
his readiness to work with them for the good of the party.

“The comrade chairman also proposes a common front in the
general election and believes that the APC, as a governing party,
will do a commemorative post mortem next year to appraise and
reappraise the political developments and decisions that presaged
the election, which it would win emphatically”