- By Halimah Olamide
A former National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress, Adam Oshiomhole, has fingered former Governor of Ekiti, Kayode Fayemi and his Ogun state counterpart, Ibikunle Amosun, as the architects of his removal from office.
Oshiomhole, while speaking at presentation of a book “APC and Transition Politics”, authored by Salihu Lukman, a former national vice chairman (North-west) of the party, at the Shehu Yar’Adua Center in Abuja on Tuesday, said governors were powerful and with a president (Muhammadu Buhari) who was not ready to intervene in the affairs of the party, the governors had their way.
Warning the current National Chairman, Umaru Ganduje, to watch his back against the current governors also playing the same card, Oshiomhole said Fayemi and Amosun began what he called a serious campaign aimed at dislodging him from office.
He also accused the author of the book, Lukman of working together to achieve their aims.
“Lukman wrote several letters, dismissing my leadership without calling me. When you ride on the back of a tiger, there is only one destination. Lukman was appointed undemocratically by the governors’ forum. I was not consulted—I was a governor. We were told this is the new DG of the APC governors forum.
“Lukman was there when I wrote a letter, inviting the governors for a meeting to discuss the guidelines for conducting primaries, let me know the thinking of the various interest groups. I have discussed it with the president, and I needed to discuss it with the governors—so that once the guidelines are out, the party can claim ownership of it because it has been debated.
“I wrote to the governors for a meeting. The governors said no, I should come to Imo House, not the APC office. He (Lukman) was in the there (where they were holding the meeting). He did not see anything wrong with that.
“It felt as though I was in a military barrack.”
He said when the attacks from the governors at the Imo House meeting got to a point, he told them none of them could lecture him about the powers of a governor.
“Because I have been governor twice. Eight years uninterrupted. At a point, I told Fayemi, ‘You did a resit. You were elected and by the second term, you lost. That means you failed’. I did not do a resit, and you are lecturing me about power. I can mention some of them.
“The man in Ogun State, he told me if not for the president, he have would left the party. Some of them told me “You are working for your paymaster in Lagos. Your paymaster in Bourdillon.
“I told the Ogun State governor, not the current one, the former one. I said “You are not loyal to President Muhammadu Buhari. Because if you are, when Buhari lost the election, you ported to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in search of a political greener pasture. You begged Asiwaju to beg Segun Osoba to accept you when you lost in the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP). And today, you are coming to say that you are loyal, what manner of loyalty is that? This is what you call opportunism.”
While warning Ganduje to be wary of the governors, Oshiomhole said, “Chairman sir, if you have not faced it already, you will face it. The only difference is if the president decides to intervene and moderate. In my own case, we have a president who was not ready to intervene.”
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