When Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomole, the diminutive former labour leader, succeeded in edging out his fellow town’s man, John Odigie-Oyegun, and assumed the national chairmanship of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), he saw himself to be next to God. Accordingly, he began to talk tough and to look down on everybody other member of his party with condensation. He insisted that these people must necessarily take orders from him without question.
Adams Oshiomole was everywhere, blowing hot. Right, left and centre, he was issuing orders and directives not only to his party members, but even to some other people outside his political circle, including some honourable ministers, threatening that he would sack any of them that tried to disobey his directives. He insisted that he was out to restore discipline to the system, and reminded the ministers that if they could afford to ignore the directives of Mr. President, that they dared not try that with him.
Following the gale of defections that hit the National Assembly, particularly from the ruling APC to the opposition PDP, which had even involved the presiding officers of the two Chambers, Oshiomole came out to talk tough. He insisted that the two presiding officers must vacate their seats immediately or be forced out. He declared that the two principal positions of the National Assembly necessarily belonged to the APC and that there was no way any other person(s) from other political parties could be allowed to be sitting on them.
In his desperate bid to ensure the removal of the two presiding officers, Oshiomole was fingered to be involved in the inglorious invasion of the National Assembly by masked DSS operatives in July this year, which was aimed at changing the leadership of the legislature.
But to prove that Adam Oshiomole is simply an empty vessel, many people who expected to see missiles flying across the two chambers of the National Assembly when it reconvened on October 9, 2018, were surprised to see the lawmakers busy exchanging pleasantries and cracking jokes among themselves on that very day. As it stands today, both Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara are still presiding over the affairs of the Senate and the House of Representatives respectively, Oshiomole’s boastfulness notwithstanding.
With 2019 elections around the corner and the need to select candidates who would fly the flags of their various political parties, Oshiomole saw it as an opportunity to prove that he was the supreme commander of the ruling APC, and that every member of the party must recognize him as such. He then began to dictate to everybody.
First, he hiked the fee for the nomination form for the Presidential ticket of the party to N55 million. This was to scare away any other would be contestant against President Muhammadu Buhari. It was only when Buhari had come to say that he could not afford such exorbitant amount that Oshiomole decided to bring the Presidential nomination form down to N45 million, while pegging the Governorship nomination form at N22 million, and with similar high prices for other positions down the line.
The problem was not that many political aspirants on the platform of the APC were forced to part with their hard earned money(?) to pay for the nomination forms, but that Adams Oshiomole perhaps, already had a prepared list of those he would want to fly the party’s flag for the various positions, so that, try as hard as you would, you would never get the ticket.This did not happen in just one or two states, but virtually in the entire 36 states of the country.
Now, Adams Oshiomole is weighed in the balance and found wanting. People are complaining everywhere, including no less a person than the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari. She lambasted Oshiomole for the shoddy manner with which he handed the party primaries. Even the President himself was not amused. While distancing himself from the fuck up, he reportedly told Oshiomole to go and “settle your mess”.
There is palpable fear that unless something miraculous happens, Oshiomole would have succeeded in disenfranchising his party members in some states like Zamfara and Rivers due to his mishandling of the party primaries in those states. Thousands of aggrieved members are daily leaving the APC to some other political parties in many other states of the country, blaming their woes on Oshiomole.
Elsewhere, protests for his removal as party chairman are thickening, but the man claims that he is standing like the Rock of Gibraltar, that over 90% of his party members were with him. We believe him, but these would no doubt include those who already had left the party, and those whose cases are pending in various courts.
Indeed, Adams Oshiomole might have greatly disappointed many of those who brought him to lead the All Progressives Congress (APC). He has inflicted very severe wounds on the party. He thought that the management of political parties is akin to the management of labour unions, where in the latter case, he would be talking tough on the employers, while in the former, it would be negotiation and compromise.
You cannot be talking down on people who perhaps, may be far better than you, simply because you are occupying a political office, and expect them to be clapping for you. And how do you expect people who had invested millions of naira on a project, and who believe that they had been shortchanged be happy with you? Adams Oshiomole has turned more of a liability than an asset to the APC.
