Adams Aliyu Eric Oshiomhole was returned unopposed as the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC at the end of the party’s National elective Convention held yesterday, thereby becoming the second elected National Chairman of APC since its debut in 2013.
Oshiomhole entered the race to the APC National Chairmanship with his predecessor, John Oyegun also a former Governor of Edo State who back out at the early stage without even obtaining the nomination forms when President Muhammadu Buhari, APC Governors and major power brokers in the party threw their weight behind Oshiomhole.
Also, Clement Ebiri, former Cross River State Governor, Osereimhen Osunbor, another one time Governor of Edo State from whom Oshiomhole took over power in the state and Ibrahim Ekpobaire who obtained nominations forms and initially vowed to slug it out with the former Nigerian Labour leader stepped down for him one after the other in quick successions in the wake of the National Convention
In brief, Oshiomhole is the immediate past two terms Governor of Edo State and former President of Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC who is known for activism and political war chest.
As the saying (biblical even) goes, “to whom much is given, much is expected” and the former Edo state governor rode to the coveted throne of APC National Chairman via a quantum of good will beginning with the endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari, APC Governors, APC National Leader, Ahmed Tinubu amongst other party kingpins.
Consequently, the good will or the generous support that heralded his heroic ascension is a cumulative reverberation of the expectations of the new Sheriff in town which is tantaount to the task before him.
It is an open secret that all is not well with the once upon a time darling party that putsch a sitting government of the then largest party in Africa. In a nutshell, APC is in disarray with everything in shambles! Oshiomhole is therefore taking over an almost collapse party which most be quickly rebuilt from the scratch in almost all ramifications.
APC is presently crisis ridden and even before the National Convention that produced the current chairman, the leader of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari was aware of the timed bomb and set up a reconciliation committee headed by the Tinubu, the National leader of the party to address the grievances and bad blood in the party.
The committee which has not submitted any report so far had lamented that the party lost its goodwill during a meeting with the then John Oyegun led National Working Committee of APC as Tinubu acknowledged that implementing the party promises to Nigerians have been very difficult.
“I sympathise with us and wish we equally look at ourselves, since we won the elections, the expectations were very high and the goodwill was extremely high too, but, where are we today?” Tinubu queried.
Oyegun had also admitted that the party has a lot of issues to resolve within the ranks of its members in the National Assembly, Benue, Kano, Kogi states, among others adding that, it is necessary for the APC to put its house in order, so as to become a political force in 2019.
“We have major issues in the National Assembly, we have major issues in Benue State, we have major issues in Kano State, we have major issues in Kogi…”
Since the Tinubu Committee has seemingly not done much, the first task before the new APC National Chairman is to embark on reconciliation and peace building in the party across all states of the federation. He will have to either work pari pasu with the committee or take over the assignment entirely.
In doing this, it is expected that he visits all states chapters of the APC and convene town hall meetings and listen to all grievances of party members with a view to addressing such concerns before primary elections which is scheduled from August according to the time table for general elections released by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Urgently, and even before the state by state peace building mechanism, Oshiomhole have to deploy his negotiation skills as a former Union leader and political acumen as a former two terms governor to look into the grievances of the nPDP block in APC to avoid possible break away from the ruling party.
The nPDP block whose membership include the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and about 50% of APC members in both Chambers of the National Assembly led by Kawo Baraje recently petitioned the party over marginalization, harassment and intimidation of its members despite the huge contribution of the group to electoral success of APC in 2015.
The grievances of the nPDP has not been adressed by the party as according to recent reports, President Buhari bluntly refused even to grant the group audience after meetings with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yielded no results.
Interestingly, nPDP which had issued 21 days ultimatum for their grievances to be addressed or they would take action discernible to be defection have not done anything as such months thereafter, and contrary to insinuations that they will boycott the convention, the group attended and participated fully in the convention that produced Oshiomhole as promised by Baraje that,
his group has no cause not to attend the convention.
“We are looking forward to the Saturday convention, we will be at the convention and after that, we shall see how things unfold”. It is therefore very incumbent on Oshiomhole to use his good office to address, if not all, at least some critical demands of the nPDP to keep it in the Kitty of APC ahead of 2019.
Oshiomhole also has the enormous task to immediately address the acrimonious ward, local government and state congresses of APC conducted by the immediate past National Working Committee, NWC of the party.
In about 20 out of the 36 states of the federation parallel APC congresses were held and presently in some of
states including Lagos, Imo, Delta, Taraba, Rivers, Cross River, Oyo among others have two parallel State Working Committees(EXCOs) in existence.
It therefore behooves the new National Chairman to ensure harmonization of the state APC EXCOs to accommodate the differing interests that culminated into such development and make the party in such states united, virile and prepared for political battles ahead.
Another prominent task awaiting the National Chairman of the ruling party is to wade into the constant face off between the Executive and Legislature which has negative effect on the performance of the APC led government as evident in late passage of budgets among other serious state matters.
APC has the leadership and majority in the Senate and House of Representatives but since the inception of this government there have being constant bickering between the APC controlled Parliament and the Presidency with both accusing each other of lack of negligence and disregard usually demonstrated via refusal to grant approvals to certain requests such as confirmation of appointments and the recent perceived alleged harassment of legislators by state apparatuses.
Above all, Oshiomhole is assuming office of the APC National Chairman moments to the general elections and when his party has lost the generous good will of Nigerians unlike in 2015.
Thus, the most critical task for Oshiomhole is to once again endear APC as a party to Nigerians and to market President Buhari to Nigerians for relection in 2019.
APC and President Buhari particularly came to power in 2015 via popular vote based on the tripod of the promises of fight against corruption, security and economic rejuvenation but according to majority of Nigerians, three years after, these promises have not been fulfilled.
To many, the fight against corruption is targeted at perceived political opponents while corruption is been swept under the carpet by those in government and in security, herdsmen are now on killing spree while in the economy, Naira continued to depreciate, pump price of fuel has skyrocketed, many businesses have folded and there is general hunger in the land.
This is the socioeconomic atmosphere under which Oshiomhole would be campaigning for Buhari and APC generally to win elections even as many state governors are owing their civil servants salaries for many months and are still interested in seeking second term.
This is indeed a serious task for Oshiomhole who while holding sway as President of NLC used to mobilize Nigerians against the then President Olusegun Obasanjo when harsh economic policies such as fuel price hike were initiated and when the welfare of workers was tinkered with.
He would now have to convince Nigerians to vote for a government that appeared to have things similar to or worst than those he had revolted against.
Before the general elections and in weeks to come, Oshiomhole would have the task of making sure his party, APC wins the governorship elections in Ekiti State, and subsequently the governorship election in Osun State.
Both PDP and APC are at daggers drawn for the soul of Ekiti and have equally declared the Ekiti governorship election as a do or die affair.
For instance, APC assembled a powerful war troop made up of governors, ministers and National Assembly members for the Ekiti battle.
Similary, PDP has also gathered all its sitting governors, members of the National Assembly and top notchers including former President Goodluck Jonathan as well as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the battle.
Oshiomhole have to bring his political magic wand to bear on the Ekiti as well as well as the Osun contests to proof his worth that he can against all odds secure victory for APC at the 2019 general elections.
