TheCable

Ibikunle Amosun, a former governor of Ogun, says Adams Oshiomhole, senator representing Edo north, needed to be removed as national chair of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the time he was ousted.

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 buildup to the 2019 elections.

During the presentation of “APC and Transition Politics”, a book authored by Salihu Lukman, immediate-past vice-chairman of the APC in the north-west, on Tuesday, Oshiomhole said Amosun was one of those who worked for his ouster.

“The man in Ogun state, he told me if not for the president, he would have left the party,” the Edo senator had said.

Oshiomhole said former President Muhammadu Buhari did not intervene when the APC governors moved to remove him.

However, in a statement on Wednesday, Amosun maintained that Oshiomhole presided over “one of the worst primaries in the history of Nigeria’s contemporary politics and ended up shopping for his own enemies, leading to his eventual removal as Chairman of our party”.

“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,” Amosun said.

“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 a 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 mindset.”

Amosun said if Oshiomhole wants to insult Buhari, he should do so boldly.

“His subtle attempt to pass snide remarks at him failed the simple test of loyalty because the former president also moved from his own party to merge with other like-minds to form the APC,” he said.

The former Ogun lawmaker said Oshiomhole is an individual “who suddenly found himself where he never dreamt of, despite his obvious limitations – education and exposure”.