Former National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator Adams Oshiomhole and ex-Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun yesterday exchanged salvos over the circumstances that led to Oshiomhole’s removal from the top party office in 2020.
Amosun, a two-term governor of the Gateway State, said the two-term Edo State governor was the architect of his own misfortune.
He said Oshiomhole was fond making reckless allegations against people.
Amosun was reacting to Oshiomhole’s comments at the presentation of a book on Tuesday in Abuja that APC governors, including him, plotted his removal as party chairman.
The book was written by former APC National Vice Chairman (Northwest) Salihu Lukman.
The book presentation was well attended by top party leaders, including National Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje, former governors, ex-party leaders and former public officials.
Oshimhole explained that the governors constituted themselves as Generals, who the party should defer to, during the moment of critical decision making.
He accused Amosun of disloyalty, saying that he abandoned his leader, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, in the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and defected to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
Oshiomhole also accused the former Ogun governor of saying that he would have left the APC if Buhari had not deterred him.
Following the protracted conflicts between Oshiomhole and the governors, three of them-Amosu, Rotimi Akeredolu (Ondo) and Rochas Okorocha (Imo) were suspended from the ruling party.
Later, the heat was turned on Oshiomhole, who was unceremoniously during the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party in June, 2020 to pave the way for a national caretaker committee headed by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State.
Rejecting Oshiomhole’s allegations, Amosun said Oshiomhole was responsible for his exit as chairman.
Amosun, in a statement titled: “Amuse Yourself, Not the Public,” accused the former chairman of conducting “one of the worst primaries in the history of Nigeria’s contemporary politics and ended up shopping his enemies, leading to his eventual removal as Chairman of our party.”
He reminded the former labour leader of his invitation by the Department of State Services “to clarify certain grave allegations.”
Amosun advised Oshiohmole to soberly take stock of his past to serve as a guide for him in his future public utterances rather than dragging the names of innocent people into a needless controversy.
The statement reads: “It’s been a struggle since yesterday (Tuesday) on what to make of the ‘tales by moonlight’ that Senator Adams Oshiomhole treated the audience of Dr Salihu Lukman to at his book launch, “APC and Transition Politics”, in Abuja.
“This apparent struggle was not for lack of a proportional response to his deliberate drivel, but because not only was his story fraught with lies but also because he did not boast the requisite integrity to say the truth.
“Besides, it is not in my character to join issues with people I consider qualified enough to be referred to as both leaders of our party, the APC, and of this great country, Nigeria, to which I believe Senator Oshiomhole belongs.
“However, given his antecedents and penchant for careless and, most times, baseless and unverified public statements, and also considering my duty to the country and the public in particular, it will be uncharitable if I fail to put the records straight.
“What Senator Oshiomhole was alleged to have said, apart from being far from the truth, is a calculated attempt to present water while drinking wine.
The Yoruba adage says, “If you let a madman bury his mom the way it pleases him, he could roast her for a meal.” At that point, the community is to blame for his choice.
“Indeed, listening to him yesterday, his utterances represent some inherent inadequacy, which he vented not just at inauspicious times but without basis and predicated only on lies to hoodwink the unsuspecting.
“It is not in doubt that I have participated fully in the formation and sustenance of our party, the APC, and I can boldly say that the party under
“Nigerians should not be in a hurry to forget the allegations that preceded the conduct of those primaries and his eventual invitation by the Department of State Service, DSS, to clarify certain grave allegations.
“If anyone was in doubt that Senator Oshiomhole posed the biggest and most destructive threat to the existence of the APC at that time, and the party’s best bet was to dispose of the canon folder that he was and unfortunately still is, his utterances and grandstanding yesterday at an occasion to find solutions to our democratic and party challenges would have cleared such a mindset.
“If he wanted to insult our leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, he could have come out boldly to do so. But his subtle attempt to pass snide remarks at him failed the simple test of loyalty because the former president also his party to merge with other like-minded people to form the APC.
“Also, if he is seeking favour from the presidency, why not come out and do so? But to tell barefaced lies like, “You are working for your paymaster in Lagos, your paymaster in Bourdillon,” is cheap but typical of an individual who suddenly found himself where he never dreamt of, despite his obvious limitations—education and exposure.
“If the public will remember, soon after Senator Oshiomhole was sworn in as a Senator, he allegedly said members of the 9th Senate had vandalised their offices before leaving, only for him to eat the humble pie and made to apologise later when it was obvious that the allegations were baseless.
“My honest advice to him is to carefully and soberly sit down to take stock of his past so that it will continue to serve as a guide for him in his future public utterances rather than dragging the names of innocent people into a needless controversy because in Africa, age and leadership are associated with wisdom.
“This is also why I have consistently brushed aside and intentionally scoffed at his tongue-in-cheek apology, which he had extended to me several times. I am now convinced it was not genuine. In the final analysis, background matters.”
Amosun is down, says Oshiomhole
Oshiomhole yesterday reacted to Amosun’s statement.
The former labour leader said the former governor is a pathological liar.
He recalled that Amosun supported a governorship candidate on the platform of an opposition party when he was Ogun APC leader.
However, he denied disrespecting former President Buhari, saying that he supported him as party chairman.
In a statement in Abuja, Oshiomhole who took exception to Amosun’s remark that he found himself in too public positions, saying: “I don’t think I need to comment on that because you can’t fight with pigs in the mud water.”
The statement reads: “The first thing is that I did not in any way say anything that was meant or that can be interpreted to mean an attack on the person of (former) President Muhammadu Buhari. Not at all. On the contrary, he is one of those who made it possible for me to be National chairman of APC.
“He contributed a lot for me to be chairman, so I have no reason to say anything against him.
“For over a period of a year, they were planning the removal but they were not able to get it and not once or twice did the President (Buhari) warn them that those who want to take any decision, that was the way he put it, who want to remove anybody, they should follow the constitution.
“The President said so on record and net. So I have no grievance whatsoever for my removal. However, the problem is, people like Amosun who believed personal relationship keeps boasting. People like Amosun were the ones who dropped the name of the president as cover for them not to follow the party’s constitution and there is no secret about it.
“Number one, that he defied the rules of the party and floated another party and encouraged his loyalist to contest governorship election on another party platform called the APM.
“We queried him and subsequently we suspended him as a member of the party. Again, this is not a secret.
“Why he hypocritically sponsored people on APM’s platform is because he knew he didn’t have the political weight and he contested his own Senatorial election on APC’s platform. So, what is not true about this?
“Number two, that he contested governorship on the ANPP platform and lost. On the primary election we conducted in Ogun State, he went to the Federal High Court and the court of appeal and his objection was dismissed because it is on record that he disobeyed the rules of the party. He did not participate in a lawful primary and therefore he had no Locus Standi to question what happened in those primaries.
“He relied heavily on his closeness to power to disobey the rules of the party and God gave me the courage and we suspended him.
“He also knew he told me that but for the president, he will not conduct primary. He said had no right to ask to supervise his primary.
“He did not behave like Senator Tejuoso also from Ogun State who contested for senatorial election like Amosun and lost but he did not leave the ANPP to join us in ACN like Amosun and it is on record.
“He also lobbied Tinubu to give him ACN’s ticket. By then I was a governor. So I was part of this process and we supported him financially and logistically for him to win the election. So I was also his pay master.
“We keep records including any other presidential election. But the whole story is both that because he had an ambition which like other ambitions died in his womb, to contest for presidential election which form he obtained. This is not a secret.
“I am grateful to ex-President Buhari because he stood by me, it is just that at the point when he was about to work, he allowed the governors, not all the governors, to have their way. Majority of the governors were on my side.
“The result was that those of them who were against me, who were holding meetings, plotting and calculating tried to use the judiciary.
“If they had the power, they didn’t need to use the court. They should have used the democratic means. That is ridiculous. But the fact is that I have no bitterness whatsoever, but we must record history.
“We need to document history and not allow people to get away from certain behaviour. It is important that whatever we do is recorded for or against us.
“That was the only thing I mentioned. It makes no difference. In any case, if they claim that my people didn’t like me, I have since won a senatorial election.
“Well, I don’t think I need to comment on that because you can’t fight with pigs in the mud water.
“Whatever he says, today I am a sitting Senator. I led the entire workforce of Nigeria as NLC President. So he has nothing about his credentials, powers or position that he can compare himself to me.
“So, he is entitled to his opinion. But I didn’t get any of those positions through godfatherism. I fought my way to where I am.
“So, I think the conclusion is don’t forget how he vowed that I would not leave the stadium alive when we went to campaign there.
“He arranged boys who went to the rally who were throwing stones and sticks at us. It was also on national television, it was covered live.
“They were throwing water and stones at us at the podium and they nearly stoned the President who had to jump to prevent one of the missiles from hitting the president.
“Again, this was on national television. And like I told him the day he called me with the president from the villa, he is just a pathological liar. And I’m happy that he has or I hope that he has learnt his lesson. All these things I have said, I can say them on oath.”
