APC must (GOWO) go on with Oshiomhole

I want to do a letter to the All Progressives Congress (APC) but there is a little problem. I don’t know to whom to address the letter. It would have been perfect addressing it to the national chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole but the letter is actually a complaint about him. He cannot be made a judge in his own case. I thought of doing it to the APC’s national leader. That one too is not a straightforward choice because it has not been established beyond contention who between President Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is the national leader of the APC.

The message is important and I cannot on account of this small protocol challenge in the APC’s hierarchy hold back what I want to say. And so, I will just address the party as an entity. Members can decide later on what to do upon receipt of the message.

And I start. It is like the APC does not have a legal adviser. I do not mean legal adviser in the sense of Babatunde Ugala. I am talking of someone that is higher than the current contentions in the party who can talk and members will listen.

Right now, there is so much trouble in the APC house and there seems to be no peacemaker around. Everybody is beating war drums. Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State has been talking without ceasing since the outcome of the APC’s governorship primary in the state. The summary of his narrative is that Oshiomhole is not good for the party. His colleague in Ondo, Rotimi Akeredolu has decisively described Adams Oshiomhole as “incompetent.”

How? It is not long ago that the APC sacked one reportedly incompetent chairman and brought in Oshiomhole on account of his proven competence. Except it is now being revealed that in the rush to do away with ‘incompetent’ Chief John Oyegun, Oshiomhole was hired blindly without a competence test, I will stay with what I know. And what I know is that Akeredelu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is making a mere allegation without proof. Such is not admissible in law, except when the matter is heard in a court of incompetent jurisdiction, like beer parlour or a football-viewing centre. I therefore put it to Akeredolu that on the strength of evidence before everybody, including the fact that Oshiomhole was hired to correct the mistakes of Chief Oyegun, Oshiomhole is competent.

Across board, nothing is looking too good for the APC and I advise it has no time for internal bickering. In Zamfara, the party is facing technical extinction as INEC continues to insist on the sanctity of the Electoral Act, which stipulates a procedure for selecting candidates by political parties. The deadline for that exercise has passed even as the APC remains stuck in efforts to create an acceptable list of candidates in Zamafara State for the general elections. There is uneasy calm in Lagos after the great storm that uprooted Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, who is now trying to strictly mind his business till May 29, 2019. He is however saying so much in his silence than he ever said in his celebrated world press conference after the APC’s governorship primary in Lagos State.

The Supreme Court’s nullification of the governorship primary in Rivers State has heightened the tension there. In Oyo State, the Minister of Communication, Mr. Adebayo Shittu is struggling to understand if what happened to him at the governorship primary had a thing to do with his non-participation in the National Youth Service Corps. The issues in Adamawa State have actually pitched Oshiomhole against First Lady, Aisha Buhari, who has allegedly told the APC chairman to conduct every party business with the President in the office and keep a safe distance from the President’s residence where she, Aisha, is chairman.

The background to that order is this. Aisha’s brother, Mahmood Ahmed lost the APC governorship ticket to the incumbent governor, Jibrilla Bindow. In summary, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with all the monumentality of her office was unable to deliver a common governorship ticket, not even the governorship seat itself, to her blood brother because of Adams Oshiomhole.

And this has been the problem with Oshiomhole. He lacks gumption. He does not know where to begin and stop this trade unionism thing that is all over him. Could he have done this to Dame Patience Jonathan and still go about with the appellate of ‘national chairman’? He thinks every situation is a call to prove prowess. A gentle deity still deserves wine not water. If he, Oshiomhole, could ‘kill’ from Lagos through Abeokuta to Akure to feed the so-called Lion of Bourdillon, why didn’t he add just one more kill in the savannah of Adamawa to feed the queen of the jungle?

In fact, while the APC house is up in smouldering flames, Oshiomhole is pretending to enjoy deep sleep in the same house that is burning. Party members have begun calling for his sack, which is actually the kernel of my counsel to the party. Agreed there is fire, but sacking Oshiomhole is neither an effective containment strategy nor a prospect on which time, resources and energy can be invested. INEC has not mentioned anything about shifting the dates of the general elections, which means the polls will open as scheduled on February 16, 2019 with the presidential elections. If Oshiomhole is taken down now for whatever sins, what time does the APC have to recreate a turn-around and prepare for the election?

Above all, the APC should not be heard talking like this at all. The agreement not long ago was that Adams Oshiomhole alone could inject action and passion into the operations of the APC. The party wanted faster sail and sowed wind and now there is a whirlwind, members should find some ways to contain it without shouting on rooftops. They also have absolute responsibility to manage the ravaging twister they have created so that it does not cause injuries to innocent people.

One of the fine points that have been counted for Oshiomhole is that he knows how to win elections by whatever means for the APC as evident in Ekiti and Osun States. Party members should simply hold on to this to make case for the survival of Oshiomhole even if it means putting all the eggs of the APC in 2019 in one basket. If something happens like making votes to count, the container will break under pressure and all the eggs will be spilled on a hard-tarred road and the APC will have no eggs for breakfast.

Exploiting the many national fault lines – religion, ethnicity, intimidation, rigging, etc., – to win elections is a thriving political culture. If anything, the APC should be thankful to God that their current national chairman has so far been able to exploit one or two of these fault lines to an advantage. The party should treat him like a bird in hand, which is worth a thousand in the bush. Until there is a comprehensive overhaul of systems and institutions, whoever is able to exploit these fault lines develop a leadership strategy shall remain useful to himself and his constituency.

After all, it is whatever sits on the head to bear the weight that is called the load pad. If religion, ethnicity, intimidation or rigging is bringing electoral fortunes to the APC under Oshiomhole, each at once becomes a perfect strategy. I will only add that the resistance in certain quarters within the APC against the use of the winning formula internally should be dropped. It is giving impression of double standards. If the strategy is good to win inter-party elections, it should also be good to win intra-party elections otherwise known as primaries.

Precisely, I want to tell the APC that whichever way the calculus is done at this point, returning is much more difficult for it than going forward. It must move forward with Oshiomhole. Something like GOWO (Going On With Oshiomhole) is a task the APC must accomplish! The party only needs a true national leader outside the available ones who can moderate objectively across board so under the Oshiomhole strategy some people do not gain all the way while others lose all the way. We are in a democracy and gains as well as pains should be democratized proportionately.

Lessons have been learnt by the APC with the advent of Oshiomhole, one of which is that crisis is either prevented or managed. If prevention fails, management must not. Oshiomhole was not prevented and so he has to be managed. Another is that apples are not reaped if mangoes were planted. When a rural aristocrat in a leadership tussle supplants a well-trained and tested bureaucrat, what you get is the current state of affairs in the APC.

It is pointless changing into dry clothes in the middle of the river. No value would be added to the state of affairs by so doing. The party can always sit to plan again with all the lessons in mind after the hurly burly is done and the battle lost and won. For now the battle is too close to change armour and the APC must float or sink with Oshiomhole. This is another description of self-affliction.