Former All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun has blamed the crisis rocking the ruling party on his successor Adams Oshiomhole, who he said lacks the temperament to lead a political party.
Odigie-Oyegun, who spoke through his Public Affairs Adviser, Ray Murphy, alleged that the National Chairman was degrading and demarketing the party.
He was quoted as saying: “Rather than seek to bring in more people on board, Oshiomhole is rather chasing people out of the party with his style of engagement.”
Murphy reacted to a reference to the state congresses conducted under the chairmanship of Odigie-Oyegun as the genesis of the APC crisis.
He said: “That statement of booby traps by Oshiomhole is ludicrous and infantile, an attempt to drum up justification for the failings of the party under Oshiomhole’s chairmanship. Oshiomhole failed because he lacks the temperament that is required to run a political party.
“He lacks the capacity to manage the different interests and tendencies that constitute a political party. He engages his mouth before engaging his mind, so he offends party members. So, how does that constitute booby traps by Odigie-Oyegun, the erstwhile chairman?
“Already, the Deputy National Chairman has confirmed that Oshiomhole runs the party without recourse to the NWC. He acts in direct opposite of decisions taken by NWC. No minutes of the NWC meetings which in any event take place outside the party secretariat.
“How would you not have crisis in states with the confusion that Oshiomhole created when he gave the states freedom to choose their methods of picking candidates for elections? Much of the crisis in states arose out of sheer incapacity on the part of the current chairman. How has this Oshiomhole incapacity become booby traps by Odigie-Oyegun.
“Many party men were aghast at the unfairness and injustice meted to them during the primaries process. Only a bad carpenter quarrels with his tools.”
The Chief Press Secretary to Oshiomhole, Simon Egbebulem, could not be reached for reaction, but the Chairman of the Akwa Ibom State chapter of the party, Ini Okopido described the statement as one of the numerous attempts to give the APC chair a bad name.
Okopido said some elements within the party “who are not happy with the discipline being brought to bear on the party are the ones sponsoring such foul languages against him”, adding that “as far as the party in the Southsouth is concerned, Comrade Oshiomhole has done nothing wrong and therefore the party in the zone are prepared to support him to the last.”
He said that the Southsouth chapter of the ruling party will resist any attempt to force Oshiomhole to resign, adding that some of those who failed to secure the party’s ticket for the last election have decided to make themselves tools for the disintegeraation of the party.
