The leadership crisis within the All Progressives Congress (APC) assumed a new dimension recently when the National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomole had to scale the walls of the party’s Wuse 2, Abuja secretariat fence to avoid being lynched by an angry mob.
A source who did not want to be named told SIGNAL, “On that fateful day, protesters and supporters of former IG of Police Suleiman Abba had besieged the party secretariat. They stayed all through the day chanting and threatening to teach Oshiomole a lesson if he dared to come out. The defiant protesters waited patiently till the closing hours but Oshiomole, sensing trouble, refused to come out of his office. It took the efforts of his security team to ferry him out of the building unnoticed. He was carried on the shoulders of a heavy-weighted man who lifted him across the back fence of the APC Secretariat in Wuse 2. He was hurriedly whisked into a small vehicle that took him away to safety.”
Oshiomole has come under intense criticism within the rank and file of the APC for the dictatorial way he is said to be running the affairs of the party.
According to another source, “He alone talks in meetings. He does not permit others to talk. He runs the party like a one-man show. It was so bad that he even went to get his own lawyer to represent APC in a case without consultations with the party’s National Legal Adviser.”
On the issue of communications, Oshiomole has also been accused of arrogating to himself and his office, the role of the party spokesperson. “He even has a CPS. There is a spokesperson who writes his own statements which is wrong. The National Publicity Secretary (NPS) of the party is supposed to manage the party’s communications across board. Oshiomole is not a CEO. He is National Chairman of APC. He serves at the pleasure of the party”, the source added.
Since the fallout of the APC primaries which were marred with controversies and protests nationwide, Oshiomole now hardly comes to the office. Instead, he has a private office in Aso Drive from where he reportedly summons NWC members to meet him.
According to reports, the NWC members initially honoured Oshiomole’s invitations to meetings in his private Aso Drive office, but after a while, they have refused to show up at such meetings.
Several APC governors have expressed disappointment over the way the national leadership of the party had gone about the issues arising from the nationwide primaries of the APC. There have also been calls within the APC for him to resign.
