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Barring any last-minute change of mind by the kingmakers of the All Progressives Congress (APC), former Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole will emerge as the party’s national chairman when the ruling party holds its national convention in June or any other time it decides. The convention, which was initially fixed for May 14, was later put forward to a yet-to-be-announced date in June.
Given that the labour leader-turned-politician has the full backing of President Muhammadu Buhari, APC national leader Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the APC state governors, political observers say he would emerge as surely as daylight chases away darkness, and would be the one to lead the ruling party into the next elections.
Long before Oshiomhole formally declared his intention to vie for the position, word had travelled far that he was the anointed one who would be used to edge out John Odigie-Oyegun, the current national chairman.
Indeed, since he began to mend fences with Tinubu, Buhari has learnt to dance to the tune of the Jagaban. Some political analysts have said that Buhari’s rejection of Odigie-Oyegun and support for Oshiomhole was a way to please Tinubu, a national leader of the party who has never hidden his wish to get Odigie-Oyegun out of office.
On April 24, Buhari held a meeting with state governors elected on the platform of APC where he reportedly asked them to support and work towards Oshiomhole’s emergence as the next national chairman of the party.
“The president called this meeting with the progressive governors to ask them to back Oshiomhole’s candidature. That’s the purpose of the meeting. That is the president’s position,” a presidential source told journalists on the night of April 24.
Similarly, some party stakeholders from the South-South zone endorsed Oshiomhole, a position which seemed to have divided the party, especially in Edo State, between Oshiomhole’s supporters and Odigie-Oyegun’s supporters. Both men are from Edo; both are former governors of the state.
While one group celebrated Oshiomhole’s endorsement, saying he was the right man because “we are going to war next year and we need a warrior in the form of Oshiomhole to lead the war”, the other group marched in protest against the endorsement.
Until the tides turned against him following Buhari’s sudden about-face over tenure elongation, Odigie-Oyegun was already euphoric that he would retain his position beyond the 2019 election.
After the APC National Executive Committee (NEC) on February 27 took a decision to grant one year extension to party executives at all levels, Odigie-Odigie had mocked those who predicted that he would be removed, calling them prophets of doom. Buhari’s shocking change of mind, however, had shattered Odigie-Oyegun’s daydream. Buhari said his withdrawal of support for the tenure extension was to avert legal tussle and that he acted on the legal advice he received from the Ministry of Justice, citing a breach of relevant sections of the party’s constitution as well as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
But while Buhari’s bombshell sealed Odigie-Oyegun’s fate, it paved the way for Oshiomhole. Although Odigie-Oyegun is free to re-contest, as are Ogbonnaya Onu, minister of science and technology, and Ken Nnamani, a former Senate president, who were earlier said to have shown interest in the APC national chairmanship position, political analysts say the battle is as good as won and lost.
So it was that after months of ground-watering, Oshiomhole finally declared his intention last Thursday, saying he was not contesting because there was failure on the part of the current leadership, but rather because the infusion of new blood and new ideas from time to time makes democracy work better.
Commending Odigie-Oyegun for the kind of leadership he has provided for the party over the years, Oshiomhole said, “Whatever anybody wants to say, I believe he chaired the party to victory in the 2015 election and history will record that in his favour along with other laudable things he has done to keep our party afloat up to this moment.”
Rochas Okorocha, Imo State governor and chairman of APC Governors’ Forum, described Oshiomhole as a dogged fighter, a man who can face challenges, and one who would strengthen the party if elected.
“I have no doubt in my mind that Oshiomhole when elected will show the way. Oshiomhole’s coming in as national chairman of APC is bad news to other political parties,” Okorocha said.
But despite Oshiomhole’s charitable disposition towards Odigie-Oyegun, the APC national chairman has not had it easy as he has had to survive many banana peels along the way.
The national chairman had been severally accused by key party figures of lacking in transparency and accountability as well as engaging in financial indiscretions.
For instance, in a strongly-worded memo to the party’s National Working Committee dated January 17, 2018 and sent through the party’s national chairman, the six APC zonal chairmen raised four key areas of indiscretions against Odigie-Oyegun, which included the lack of transparency in the finances of the party, formation of ad-hoc committees, abandonment of the zones, and unilateral change of party structures.
Timi Frank, a former deputy national publicity secretary of the party, had also severally accused Odigie-Oyegun of mismanaging APC funds, saying the only way for the party to move forward was for the chairman to resign.
Odigie-Oyegun’s emergence as APC national chairman in 2014 had the full support of Tinubu and Oshiomhole, then governor of Edo State. In fact, Tom Ikimi, a former minister of foreign affairs and then top contender for the national chairmanship position with Odigie-Oyegun, while announcing his withdrawal from the APC after the convention that produced Odigie-Oyegun, had described the convention as a charade and accused Tinubu of hijacking the party. He had also accused the party’s governors of colluding with Tinubu to truncate democratic process at the national convention.
But Tinubu and Odigie-Oyegun were soon to fall apart following APC’s victory in 2015. Top on the list of Odigie-Oyegun’s sins is the allegation by the Tinubu camp that the party chairman sidelined their leader in the party affairs.
Subsequently, Tinubu and Odigie-Oyegun disagreed on several issues, including the election of principal officers of both houses of the National Assembly on June 9, 2015, where Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara emerged as Senate president and House of Representatives speaker, respectively, as against the party’s preferred candidates Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila.
Both men also disagreed during the Kogi State governorship election crisis which propped up Yahaya Bello, who apparently had Odigie-Oyegun’s imprimatur, as against James Faleke, who was said to have had Tinubu’s support.
But it was the Ondo State governorship election of November 2016 that clearly defined the deep-seated acrimony between the two gladiators. While Tinubu rooted for Segun Abraham as his preferred candidate for governorship, Odigie-Oyegun had other plans. Eventually Rotimi Akeredolu, who did not have Tinubu’s support, emerged as the APC governorship candidate in Ondo.
Following this, Tinubu kicked against the primary election process that saw the emergence of Akeredolu and launched a scathing attack on Odigie-Oyegun, demanding his resignation.
“Oyegun’s comportment regarding the Ondo State primary will become the textbook definition of political treachery and malfeasance of the basest order. Oyegun and his fellows seem to be on a different wave length. They are the cohort of Unchange,” Tinubu wrote.
And, most recently, after his appointment by President Buhari in February to head a committee to reconcile all warring factions in the APC, Tinubu wrote a letter to Odigie-Oyegun and copied President Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Saraki and House of Reps Speaker Dogara.
In the letter, Tinubu accused Odigie-Oyegun of undermining his (Tinubu’s) efforts to reconcile aggrieved party members as assigned to him by the president.
He said “instead of being a bulwark of support as promised”, Odigie-Oyegun positioned himself “in active opposition to the goal of resuscitating the progressive and democratic nature of APC”.
He alleged that the national chairman was making efforts “to undermine my mandate by engaging in dilatory tactics for the most part” and breached the spirit of their discussion by taking it as a personal ambition “to thwart my presidential assignment”.
It was, therefore, not surprising that Tinubu would quickly commend Buhari for standing against tenure extension for Odigie-Oyegun and other members of the APC NWC.
Now the die is cast, and even though Umar Ganduje, Kano State governor, has said President Buhari’s choice on who becomes the next national chairman of APC is his personal opinion and not an imposition in any way, political observers say if hindsight is anything to go by, Oshiomhole’s victory is a done deal.
The questions now are: What will Oshiomhole’s tenure as APC national chairman be like? Will the former Edo governor lead APC to victory in 2019? Will he be able to reconcile and unite all the warring factions in the APC, which many today still refer to as an agglomeration of strange bedfellows? Will he enthrone party discipline, internal democracy, and transparency and accountability in the handling of party finances? What will be his relationship with Tinubu? In short, will Oshiomhole right all the wrongs that Odigie-Oyegun has been accused of?
CHUKS OLUIGBO
