Edo Election: Tinubu’s 2023 Presidential ambition at risk – APC’s Founding Members

Twelve founding members of the APC have warned the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to call Comrade Oshiomhole to order. the members who spoke on Tinubu’s presidential ambition said his actions now would have a great effect on his future aspiration.

“We are also making this demand, bearing in mind that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is eagerly desirous of continuing from where PMB stops in 2023, and his response to issues of the day within the APC, will signpost how the soup will eventually taste. We made this assertion with all sense of responsibility based on the belief that our party deserves the best and we are proud to have some of the best democrats Nigeria has produced as leaders of our party. Therefore as one of the best democrats in the history of our country, Asiwaju needs to categorically declare his position on many of the contentious decisions of the Comrade Oshiomhole’s NWC. This calls to question the democratic credentials of our party and with it the democratic orientation of our leaders in the party. Will our leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, be on the side of fairness and democracy? The side of justice and reconciliation, or the side of impunity and disunity perpetrated by no other person than the APC National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole?

“We would recall that the APC has set up a powerful reconciliation Committee under the revered former National Chairman of APC, Chief Bisi Akande. However, to date, nothing has happened. Moreover, is that how we will keep trudging till 2023? No reconciliation, only acrimonies, engineered by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole? Is that how we want to pay the sacrifices made by the duo, President Buhari and Asiwaju? Clearly, as the National Leader, Asiwaju Tinubu will be doing party members a great deal of injustice without coming out and providing reconciliatory direction on this crucial matter of internal party disputes.

“We would not like to entertain the idea that the moral authority of our National Leader cannot be activated now, to put the APC on an even keel for more exploits in 2023 and beyond. We should not forget that we have suffered incalculable losses since 2015, and even more crucially by sheer mismanagement of our affairs, we are inadvertently giving oxygen to the PDP, a failed political formation that we thought we had castrated in 2015.

Tinubu subtly supporting Oshiomhole

“However, can there be a reconciliation in an atmosphere of impunity perpetrated by the National Chairman of APC, which could not have been possible without the tacit green light from the National leader himself? We find it bewildering that just within a space of one month, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole had serially and violently violated the APC Constitution; that the silence of Asiwaju, the National Leader is disconcerting.

“Could it be that now we should forget about constitutionalism and due process in the affairs of APC? First, Adams Oshiomhole has constituted himself as a one-person National Working Committee of APC. It is distasteful and undemocratic that Adams Oshiomhole has subordinated the entire NWC to his whims and caprices such that the team spirit and canon of collective responsibility envisaged by the APC Constitution are no longer there.

Edo politics

“Who gave Comrade Adams Oshiomhole the power to convey the decision of the NWC to INEC, as critical as that of the mode of primaries for Governorship election three bright days before the meeting of the NWC on the matter? The implication of this illegal, nay irresponsible action is that the NWC did not meet to approve such a decision. At best, the NWC was convened to rubber-stamp his illegalities.

“Also, the APC National Chairman wrote a letter to INEC to change the official address of the Edo State chapter of APC contrary to Article 8 (page 6) of the APC Constitution, which also requires the approval of NEC. In the same vein, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole drafted a PDP loyalist into APC, a person that is being prosecuted by EFCC as we speak, a person that fiercely fought against the election of President Buhari in February 2019 elections in Edo State using the stolen arms money President Buhari is currently retrieving, a person with no clear allegiance to President Buhari and the APC, and unilaterally gave such person a waiver to contest Governorship primaries without NEC approval.

“Now, if this had been the practice, then we can say that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has not only emasculated the NWC but put the NEC in one corner. Thus, by refusing to convene the meeting of the National Executive Committee of APC to consider critical decisions, Comrade Oshiomhole has murdered democracy in the APC. As democrats, we believe that such actions are reprehensible and condemnable. No leadership will condone such illegal actions that can only undermine the democratic ethos upon which APC stands. They are already tarnishing the image of the party, creating disillusionment and apathy amongst party members and destroying the beautiful legacies of President Buhari which frees the atmosphere for healthy inter- and intra- party contestations.

“So, where is the National Leader when one man is desecrating the APC Constitution and at every turn killing the party? Is that the kind of party we would want to ride on in 2023? Is Nigerian politics about to witness the rebirth of former President Obasanjo’s draconian control of party structures as we move closer to 2023? It is time for Asiwaju Tinubu to demonstrate his democratic leadership. It is time he gives life to the institutionalization of APC and not create the perception that he is behind this brigandage that is tearing the APC apart, with severe consequences for the capacity of the party to hold on in one piece as we inch towards 2023. 2023 in APC must be about strengthening internal democratic rules in APC, it must be about ensuring that all APC leaders respect internal rules as provided in the constitution, and it must be about fairness and justice for all members”.