APC crisis: Convene NEC now or resign, PGF DG tells Oshiomhole

The Director-General of the Progressive Governors’Forum (PGF),
Salihu Moh. Lukman, has charged the National Chairman of the All
Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, to convene
the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party or resign
immediately.

The PGF Director-General’s call came on the heel of the multiple
internal crisis rocking the party in the states across the country,
the most current of which is the worsening power tussle between
Oshiomhole and his successor as governor of Edo State, Governor
Godwin Obaseki, which Lukman described as embarrassing to the
ruling party.

Lukman, in a statement he personally authored, titled ‘APC and
our Inconceivable Organisational Challenges: Urgent Call to our
Leaders’ and made available to journalists in Abuja on Wednesday,
said the National Working Committee (NWC), an administrative organ
of the party, including just a select members of the NEC and is
tasked with the responsibility of executing decisions of the NEC,
had hijacked the responsibilities of the apex decision-making organ
of the party, the NEC, which he said seemed to have been
suspended.

According to him, many of the crisis facing the party in the
state, many of which had cost the party some states hitherto
considered as its stronghold states, are those that the NEC or
National Caucus meeting of the party are designed to sort out.

He reminded Oshiomhole that his constituency, as National
Chairman of the party goes beyond his home state of Edo, but the
whole of the country, charging him to follow the party’s
constitution by convening the NEC, face the party in the process of
resolving the myriad of crises facing it or simply accept that he
is not capable of leading the party any further and resign his
office as National Chairman.

“Side by side with the news of the vote of no confidence was
also the discomforting report of the Federal High Court judgement
in Abuja disqualifying Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo as our Deputy
Governorship candidate for the November 16, 2019 Bayelsa election.
While expecting that every necessary step will be taken to vacate
the judgement, it is very depressing for every committed party
member to be subjected to such ignominious reality, which only
remind us of our reckless conducts in states like Zamfara, Rivers,
Bauchi and Adamawa, which chiefly gave away electoral victories to
PDP.

“Instead of focusing on working to win elections, we are busy
undermining ourselves. All these are ominous signs that we are
about to re-enact the Zamfara, Rivers, Bauchi and Adamawa
experiences in Bayelsa. It is Bayelsa today, Anambra, Edo and Ondo
are being setup for similar experiences. Somehow, unfortunately,
the National Executive Council (NEC) of the party, which is the
organ vested with the statutory responsibility of responding to all
these challenges appear to be suspended. The last time it met was
August 2018. In its place, the National Working Committee (NWC),
which is an administrative organ with the responsibility of
implementing decisions of NEC and other higher organs seems to have
usurped the powers of NEC.

“Sadly, even the NWC, as at today, is a shadow of itself, as it
has lost many members either on accounts of appointment into
government or controversial suspension. For instance, Otumba Niyi
Adebayo, Deputy National Chairman (South) is today a Minister of
the Federal Republic. Sen. Lawal Shuaibu, Deputy National Chairman
(North) is allegedly suspended. Alh. Inuwa Abdulkadir, National
Vice Chairman (North West) is similarly suspended.

“We may recall that in June 2019, the NWC allegedly suspended
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu SAN. During the 2019 general elections,
on accounts of the roles of former Governors Rochas Okorocha and
Ibikunle Amosun against the candidates of the party, they were
similarly suspended. Whether all these actions are permissible by
provisions of the APC’s constitution is highly contestable.

“Why should all these be allowed to happen? Why is it impossible
to convene a NEC or even National Caucus meetings, which are
supposed to hold every quarter to resolve all these issues? Why
should the NWC under Comrade Oshiomhole continue to imagine that it
can conduct affairs of the party without mandatory meetings of
party organs? What legacy is Comrade Oshiomhole hoping to achieve
as a National Chairman by running the party in a way that suggests
almost zero commitment to issues of party development?

“It is very painful for many of us who have had the privilege of
being mentored by Comrade Oshiomhole to see him being devalued to a
local factional leader from a very high pedestal of an illustrious
national leader. As National Chairman, Comrade Oshiomhole hardly
appreciate that he now has a national constituency and not just a
state constituency, which may have been responsible for his
apparent intemperance in the handling of matters affecting Edo
State. I wish he paid similar attention to handling of issues
affecting Rivers and Zamfara states during the 2019 elections.

“In the current circumstance, nothing short of a NEC or National
Caucus meeting of the party can resolve all our increasing
organisational challenges as a party. It is either Comrade
Oshiomhole respect the provision of party constitution and convene
superior organ meeting to deliberate on all our challenges, or he
should just accept his inability to manage the party and simply
resign.

“Our national leaders must rise to the challenge facing us as a
party and take all necessary measures to convene superior organ
meetings to begin to resolve all our challenges as a party. The
current public disgrace must end”, he said.

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