Oshiomhole suspension: I don’t know if Buhari still support me as APC chairman

Oshiomhole: I don’t know if Buhari still support me as APC chairman

Adams Oshiomhole

Adams Oshiomhole, the embattled national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) says he does not know if President Muhammadu Buhari is still okay with him piloting the affairs of the party.

Mr Oshiomhole stated this while briefing newsmen on Thursday after he met with the president at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The helmsman of the ruling party was on Wednesday suspended from office by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. The next day, another court of equal jurisdiction in Kano halted the suspension, a development FACTS gathered is not known to law.

Despite halting the suspension, Police officers dispatched to enforce the previous order at the national secretariat of the APC were still on duty.

“Now, you want me to read him, I will decline. If you are in doubt, you are so privileged here that you can ask the president: comfortable or uncomfortable,” Oshiomhole responded when queried if he has the support of the president to continue in office.

“I am not a comfort reader, what I have done I have explained to you, that much I know is the truth. As for questions that have to do with inner feelings, those you can confirm if you are in doubt,” he added.

He also alleged that those after him were strategizing for the next general election in 2023.

“But there are other forces that see me for whatever reason as a threat to them. And those leading this anti-Oshiomhole campaign, some of them I emphasise, cannot even boost of a councillor in their state even as they lay claim to leadership position in our party.”

Oshiomhole also said what worries him most is what he will be remembered for when he leaves office as the national chairman of the APC.

“You see in whatever you do, those who want to fight you will fight you. But I know that my tenure will be defined my God not by man. And I worry more about what I will be remembered for when I was chairman rather than how long I was chairman,” he said.

“I am convinced that I have done my very best, mistakes would have been made and I want to see the one person who will say he has never made mistakes. But if there are mistakes of the head, we have the capacity to correct mistakes of the head. But I know I have not set out to make the mistakes of the heart. It is just that by the reason of the position that I occupy, it is not quite appropriate for me to join at this hour in explaining who is responsible for the losses that people point out and they want to heap on my head.”

Backstory

The travail of the former Edo State governor started when he engaged his successor, Godwin Obaseki, in a political battle over the soul of the current state House of Assembly.

Those said to be loyal to the APC helmsman reportedly lost out when the current state assembly was formed. Most principal officers of the house are said to be loyal to the incumbent governor, which did not augur well with the former governor.

The dispute led some national officers of the party to urge him to step aside because he was no longer worthy to lead the ruling party having been suspended at the ward level, probably at the instance of Mr Obaseki who controls a faction of the party in Edo State.

Those rooting for his removal approached the court in furtherance of their plot to oust him, this led to Wednesday’s ruling and its counter-ruling.