Oshiomhole: Buhari didn’t intervene when governors moved to oust me as APC chair

Adams Oshiomhole, senator representing Edo north, says former President Muhammadu Buhari did not do anything to help him when some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) removed him as national chairman of the party.

Oshiomhole, a former governor of Edo state, was the national chairman of the ruling party between 2018 and 2020.

Former governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo and Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun were aggrieved over the APC primary polls presided over by Oshiomhole in the build-up to the 2019 polls.

At the time, Oshiomhole was grilled by the Department of State Services (DSS) after some APC governors accused him of collecting bribes to favour candidates in the primary polls that were marred by controversies.

His ouster led to the setting up of a caretaker committee led by Mai Mala Buni, governor of Yobe.

Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja at the presentation of “APC and Transition Politics”, a book authored by Salihu Lukman, immediate-past vice-chairman of the APC in the north-west, Oshiomhole said Buhari was “not ready to intervene”.

“Chairman sir (Ganduje), if you have not faced it already, you will face it,” he said.

“The only difference is if the president decides to intervene and moderate. In my own case, we have a president who was not ready to intervene.”

The senator said attempts to get the APC governors to work out guidelines for the primary polls were not successful.

“It felt as though I was in a military barrack,” Oshiomhole said.

“At one point, I told Fayemi, ‘You did a re-sit. You were elected and by the second term, you lost. That means you failed’. I did not do a re-sit, and you are lecturing me about power. I can mention some of them.

“The man in Ogun State, he told me if not for the president, he would have left the party.”

The former APC chairman said Lukman was one of those who fought against him.

“Lukman wrote several letters, dismissing my leadership without calling me. When you ride on the back of a tiger, there is only one destination. Lukman was appointed undemocratically by the governors’ forum,” he said.

“I had discussed it (primaries) with the president, and I needed to discuss it with the governors so that once the guidelines are out, the party can claim ownership of it because it has been debated.”

Oshiomhole said some of the APC governors wanted to hold the meeting at the Imo government house and Lukman “did not see anything wrong with that”.

Lukman, the author,  said the book is aimed at having robust conversations in the APC.