Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt
A South-South founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Perekeme Kpodoh, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to tread cautiously in handling the crisis rocking the ruling party.
He alleged that persons against the survival of the APC were behind it.
Kpodoh, who spoke in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, at the weekend, said enemies of the party including opposition elements, drafted the scripts to oust the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole and create leadership crisis to destabilise the APC ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
He said persons behind the Oshiomhole-must-go campaign were working on the theory that dumping the party chairman would affect the interests of the main APC founders and compel them to engage the party in a prolonged internal battle.
Kpodoh said the forces against Oshiomhole had not given genuine reasons to justify their actions beyond saying that the party chairman was stubborn.
He said the APC had waxed stronger under Oshiomhole winning the presidential election, ensuring majority seats in the National Assembly with most of the states controlled by the APC governors.
He said Oshiomhole lived up to his promise of giving President Buhari a better National Assembly leadership, which had been at the vanguard of granting most of the requests of the Presidency.
Kpodoh insisted that the strength of Oshiomhole was greater than his flaws adding that he deserved commendation instead of vilification.
He said for APC to defeat its enemies, Buhari and the core founders of the party must insist that Oshiomhole should finish his tenure as the party’s national chairman.
Kpodoh said most of the people championing the campaign against the party chairman, stood aloof when a former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, Buhari and a few others toiled day and night to form the APC.
He said such individuals, who had harvested in a field they never cultivated, were driving the campaign against Oshiomhole to injure the sensibilities of the core founding fathers of the party.
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He said such persons wanted the founding fathers and other progressive elements to reason that the APC had been hijacked by anti-progressives elements and withdraw their membership of the party.
He said if they were allowed to succeed, the APC would be weakened ahead of the election to give the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) an opportunity to bounce back to power.
He said: “It is time to save the APC from these evil forces and the hawks gathering to consume the party before the 2023 election. Oshiomhole has done nothing wrong. Generally he has performed very well to protect the interest of the APC against the opposition forces.
“The only sin Oshiomhole has committed is to stop some individuals from foisting their selfish ambitions against the collective interest of the party. He has prevented opposition elements from infiltrating the party and the only way to stop him is to remove him.
“I am, therefore, calling on President Buhari to stand against these forces by ensuring that the national chairman completes his tenure to give the party stability it deserves ahead of the coming election.
“We know that the President is serving his second term, his vision for this country will die if he allows this party to implode. Most of these elements are already planning their exit after the collapse of the party. They are deliberately sowing the seeds of discord to facilitate their exit”.
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