Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt
Southsouth founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Perekeme Kpodoh, has thrown his weight behind the position of the party’s National Leader and former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, on the crisis rocking the party.
Speaking in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Kpodoh described Tinubu’s statement as quintessential, progressive and apt. He urged all members of the party with good intentions to support the position of the national leader.
He said only persons playing politics of destruction and destablisation would toe a different path and disagree with Tinubu’s position
He lambasted the Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, for trying to sidestep the political hierarchy of the party and impose himself as the APC South South leader.
Kpodoh accused Obaseki of acute ingratitude towards his benefactor and the APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, who groomed him against all odds and made him governor
He said Oshiomhole by virtue of his position remained the leader of the party in Edo while the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege would continue to be the leader of the party in the Southsouth.
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He said: “Obaseki has demonstrated total disrespect to Oshiomhole, who picked him from nowhere and made him a governor against all odds.
“Obaseki has shown lack of willingness to respect the political hierarchy in the party otherwise he would not have called a meeting of APC members from the zone because he lacks the capacity to do so. Obaseki should tread carefully before this war he is waging against his benefactor consumes him”.
He insisted that enemies of the party including opposition elements drafted the scripts to oust Oshiomhole and create leadership crisis to destabilise the APC ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
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.
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.
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.”
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