Justice Danlami Senchi has ordered the suspension of the All Progressives National Chairman (APC), Adams Oshiomhole. Oshiomhole’s suspension is coming weeks after some members of the APC staged a protest at the party’s National Secretariat to demand his removal as National Chairman.
Some of the aggrieved members of the APC had accused Oshiomhole of high handedness and attributing the recent loss of the Governorship seat in Bayelsa State to ‘’his clear disregard for the provisions of the party’s constitution”.
Aside from his battle of supremacy with his successor as Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, Oshiomhole is also having a running battle with some governors of the APC who were not comfortable with his handling of the ruling party.
In November 2019, the APC’s Governor’s forum, in a statement by its Director-General, Salihu Lukman called for Oshiomhole’s resignation.
“It is either Oshiomhole respect the provision of the 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,” Lukman said
The Many Troubles of Oshiomhole
On 23 June 2018, the Former Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress and two-term governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole emerged as the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) following a voice vote by delegates at the party’s National convention in Abuja.
Barely five months into the saddle of his leadership, Oshiomhole got caught in the web of crisis with some of the governors of over the party’s primaries. Leading the Oshiomole-must-go campaigners then were Former Governors, Rochas Okorocha, (Imo), Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), and Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara State). They all put up arms against Oshiomhole over the outcome of the party’s primary elections for various positions ahead of the 2019 general elections.
The in-fighting between Oshiomhole and the former governors led to the party losing out in Zamfara State while the anointed candidates of Amosun and Okorocha also failed to clinch the gubernatorial seats in their respective States.
Oshiomhole is also enmeshed in a corruption scandal which is now a subject of litigation at an Abuja High Court as his accuser sought the order of the court to compel the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to invite and investigate a petition which had been gathering dust on its shelf for over two years.
Can the Akande committee resolve face-off?
A few weeks ago, the APC National Executive Committee (NEC) opted to restore sanity in the party by setting up a reconciliation-committee headed by the former interim chairman of the party- Chief Bisi Akande. The panel has the sole function of meeting with and attempting to assuage aggrieved members to see reasons to work for the good of the party by settling their issues amicably with those they had issues with.
