‘He populated primary election panels with his kindred’ — VON DG blames Oshiomhole for APC crisis

Osita Okechukwu, director-general of Voice of Nigeria (VON), has asked Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to resign.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Wednesday, Okechukwu accused Oshiomhole of breaching the party’s constitution.

He said the “mess” created by the chairman can only be put together by President Muhammadu Buhari and the leaders of the APC.

“As national chairman, I had high respect for him like most of our members. But today, three, four months down the line, he has grossly breached the constitution of the APC, grossly divided the APC further that it is only Mr President and the leadership of the party that can couple together the mess,” he said.

“I was a member of the APC merger committee. I stand to say I am a foundation member, like Comrade Oshiomhole. We started by saying we are true progressives, patriots, who wanted to make change, who wanted to avoid discrimination, eliminate what those we defeated in 2015 were doing.

“We talked of change. Our motto is justice, peace and harmony. The constitution went further to say that if you want to conduct any primary or congress to elect anybody, it must be democratically done.

“I think actually, unlike those who are saying he is a mole, I don’t think so. What I know is that as a social scientist, the little I could read on Adams Oshiomhole is that he suffers from narcissism, what in local parlance is called ‘I too know’ (ITK). So he doesn’t believe anybody except himself; he has an inordinate fascination about himself.”

He alleged that the controversies trailing the primaries can be traced to the panels that conducted the elections which he said were made up of Oshiomhole’s companions.

He said: “What we noticed, especially in the south-east where I come from, is that Oshiomhole populated the leadership of the panels with his kindred and cronies.

“Go to the records of the outcome of those primaries, one in Kano, Kebbi, Akwa Ibom, filled with Edo people. Is that federal character principle? Or where there no qualified chairman that could come from Jigawa, Kano, Ekiti, and Enugu?

“So if you went out of your way to grossly violate the constitution of the party, the outcome is on the plate.

“Instead of Comrade Oshiomhole to take the party to the wrongs of removing people, he should resign.”

Okechukwu lost the Enugu west senatorial ticket to Juliet Ibekaku, special assistant to the president on justice reform.