For the pompous and arrogant former Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomole, things have not been easy since he assumed the enviable position of National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), about six months ago.
Since then, Adams Oshiomole has been rocked in atrocious battle of how to instil discipline within the ranks and file of his political party, as well as how to lead his party to victory in next year’s general election.
He started by talking tough, confronting everybody he came across, not minding their status or standing in life. He thought that by this way he would succeed in caging or intimidating everybody, thereby forcing them to begin to kowtow before him.
But he misfired, and this gave him up has a poor manager of men. As things currently stand, Adams Oshiomole has virtually lost the first battle of keeping his house in order, while at the same time grappling on how to lead his party to victory in next year’s election.
Instead of Oshiomole being friendly and accommodating to his party members, he chose to toe the path of war, always threatening fire and brim stone, and boasting of what he was going to do to any party member that failed to obey his command. In the process, he lost almost one-quarter of his party members in the National Assembly, including its two presiding officers, who all dumped the APC to join some opposition political parties.
In the same vein, across the country, the APC equally lost three governors elected on its platform, followed by thousands of other party members. Yet, Oshiomole said he would not lose any sleep.
In the just concluded political party primaries, Oshiomole committed many more blunders. Not only did he jerk up the cost of party nomination forms to astronomical heights of N45 million for the Presidential Nomination Form, N22 million for the Governorship, etc., he also allowed as many candidates as possible to pay for these forms and in the end, turned round to disqualify or rig them out.
Today as many as four influential APC governors – Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, Abdulazziz Yari of Zamfara State and Rotimi Akerodoru of Ondo State, are up in arms against Adams Oshiomole, over what they considered were the injustices he perpetrated against their preferred candidates during the APC primaries.
This is not talk about former the Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan, “Mama Taraba”, who was disqualified by Oshiomole from contesting the Governorship of Taraba State due to some flimsy reasons. Or even the President’s wife herself, Aisha Buhari, who after her preferred candidate was rigged out in the Governorship race of Adamawa State lamented that “it is disheartening that some aspirants used their hard-earned money to purchase nomination forms, got screened, cleared and campaigned vigorously, yet found their names omitted on election day”.
Mrs. Buhari while decrying the “exorbitant prices” of APC nomination forms, further lamented that “many of these candidates had contested, yet had their results delayed, fully knowing that automatic tickets had been reserved for other people”.
Thus, within six months of Oshiomole’s leadership of APC, he has succeeded in keeping the party divided as it battles for next year’s election. This is not a very good testimonial to the quarrelsome chairman.
In the same vein, Oshiomole has not stopped from vomiting venoms, attacking people, right, left and centre, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
