APC leaders rally round Oshiomhole

National leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have drummed up support for Edo Governor Adams Oshiomhole over the crisis in the house of assembly.

Four APC lawmakers, who defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had been disciplined by the house leadership but the assembly has since been unable to sit as policemen have taken over the complex.

APC national chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, led some leaders of the party on a solidarity visit to Oshiomhole on Monday.

Oyegun said: “After due considerations at a meeting held  on Friday, we decided that it was immediate and urgent that we pay a visit to you, to come and tell you and of course the Legislators  that we know what you have been passing through, we understand and we are glad with the way you have been managing what you have been going through.

“This kind of rascality and indiscipline must not be seen to be rewarded. Against all odds, you have remained firm and this is the spirit of the new APC.

“Besides the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, you are the most current target of attack in their quest to destabilise APC governors. For this simple reason you are not alone. What the Party, APC has come to realise is a properly mapped out war by the PDP to distabilise the APC.

“The rate at which institutions of state, especially security institutions, are being undermined and destroyed can no longer be accepted and tolerated.

“We read in newspapers, the way the Police have been used to protect eight or nine people against lawful decisions of court, against lawful and majority controlled house of assembly”.

Oshiomhole thanked Oyegun for the visit of the delegation made up of Dr Ogbonanya Onu, Amaechi, former Kwara Governor Bukola Saraki, national secretary Mainala Boni, national publicity secretary Lai Mohammed and minority leader of the house of representatives Femi Gbajabiamila.

The governor said: “I think what people refer to basically as crisis in Edo State is something so described because we are not English people and we do not have the right words to use.

“My view is that, the refusal by four suspended members of the PDP of a 24-member house would be a decision validly taken by their own house on the basis of rules governing the house that they are a part of, so, their insubordination has not in any way translated to a crisis.

“Ordinarily, this should be seen as the internal affairs of the House that should bother only the members of the house. Whether the House chooses to suspend a member or appoint a member on assignment or whatever, given the principles of separation of powers, that should not have anything to do with anyone but members of the house, particularly when it has become traditional that various houses of the assembly at one time or the other either for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, at the state and even at the national level have had course to suspend their members and it has never become an issue leading to the blockade of the economy of the state.

“It is more of the way the Police managed or intervened in the suspension and providing security cover to force these people into the house that has become an issue.”