To save the All Progressives Congress (APC) from collapse, President Muhammadu Buhari has been advised to wade into the crisis rocking the party.In an open letter to the President, the Acting National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mr. Timi Frank said the recent position of a founding father and National Leader of the party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, about the National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, showed that all was not well with the APC.

According to Frank, the president should intervene and save the party from collapse, considering the weighty allegation of misdeeds levelled against Odigie-Oyegun by Tinubu over the Ondo State APC governorship primaries.“If nothing is done urgently, then I’m afraid ‘the pot left on the fire will definitely burn, ” he said.

The publicity secretary traced the origin of the crisis to the buildup to the election of the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives when the Odigie-Oyegun-led leadership allegedly treated the issue shabbily, in addition to the tardy manner in which the chairman also allegedly handled the conduct of the Bayelsa State governorship primaries that produced the defeated APC candidate, Mr. Timipreye Sylva.

“Subsequently, when my immediate boss, Alhaji Lai Mohammed became the Minister of Information, I was supposed to immediately fill in the gap and act in his stead as enshrined in our party’s constitution as the Acting National Publicity Secretary of the party, but this was not to be as I was persecuted for reasons unknown and perhaps for selfish interest. I was deprived of performing my duties, and my duties assigned to themselves.

“It is worthy of note that today, we are witnessing the same concerns and fear being expressed by one of the founding fathers of our great party, agreeing with my earlier call that Odigie-Oyegun should resign as the national chairman.

“This allegation of bribery raised by Tinubu as regards the recent Ondo governorship primaries should be of concern to all well-meaning party leaders and elders and should not be swept under the carpet. This weighty allegation should and must be properly investigated because there is no smoke without fire. Mr. President sir, you recall the launch of the ‘Change Begins With Me Campaign’ a fortnight ago, where we were admonished to lead by example, and I dare say that this change must start from within the party so that Nigerians can follow suit,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Caretaker Committee of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has said that Nigerians must tread with caution over the calls for the sale of national assets because the advice is unpatriotic and laden with the intention of grabbing them, which would further depress the economy.

Makarfi who lamented the outcome of past sale of national assets, queried: “What have we achieved with it?”The PDP chief who spoke with The Guardian in an interview said: “Assets were sold in the past, what impact did it make? If you sell the assets, how much are you going to get? Is that going to be adequate to resuscitate the Nigerian economy? It is a different thing when things are normal for government to privatise.”

According to him, “when we have a bigger problem and people begin to think that doing away with the assets will be the solution, this is unfortunate indeed. It is a call by people who want to grab the assets.Without selling the assets we can restore normalcy and buoyancy; even if you are going to privatise you get better value for the assets.”