Oshiomhole lashes out at governors Okorocha and Amosun saying there is no room for emperors in APC

ALL Progressives Congress (APC) chairman Adams Oshiomhole has hit back at state governors calling for his removal over his refusal to endorse their preferred candidates saying that there is no place in the party for what he called emperors.

 

Over the last few weeks, the APC has been wracked with internal divisions as a result of its divisive gubernatorial and parliamentary primary elections. Across many states, there were complaints about some candidates being imposed on the party, especially by governors who ignored the results of the primaries and proceeded to forward the names of their preferred candidates to APC headquarters in Abuja.

 

Some governors are also unhappy with the party chairman for refusing to rubber stamp their candidate selections and earlier in this week, they met in Abuja to plot his removal.  Governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State in particular at incensed at the fact that their anointed successors were not selected by the party as its gubernatorial candidates.

 

Yesterday, Mr Oshiomhole said that the party would not bend its rules for the personal interest of some party members. Speaking about the contentious outcomes of its primaries in Imo, Ogun, Rivers and Zamfara states, he added the APC would abide by a Supreme Court judgment on Rivers State.

 

Mr Oshiomhole added: " We appreciate that democracy is basically about the rule of law and not the rule of might. Based on this fact, which is not a choice, we are obliged to respect the rule of law and at the heart of that is total obedience to the letters and the spirit of judicial findings which are not meant to be convenient.

 

"In a democracy, there are orders that need to be obeyed, therefore, the judgment of the Supreme Court is very clear that it has nullified the ward congresses that were done by my predecessor in Rivers State and also nullified the state and local government congresses that were done in the state.  What is important is that as things stand, the highest court in the land has pronounced that those congresses did not meet the requirements of the law and are therefore not valid."

 

He also dismissed the decision of the Independent Electoral Commission (Inec) barring the party from fielding a governorship candidate in Zamfara State over its failure to meet the deadline for the submission of candidates’ names. According to Mr Oshiomhole, the stance of the electoral umpire was an act of disenfranchisement, aimed at awarding the governorship position in the state to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

 

Furthermore, Mr Oshiomhole condemned the fact that governors Okorocha and Amosun were bent on fielding their choice aspirants at the expense of the party’s constitution. He called on both governors to respect the will of the party like gentlemen.

 

“In the APC constitution, the only body authorised to conduct primaries is the national working committee of which I am privileged to be the chairman but there are processes that must be followed before this exercise is made a possibility. Our national executive committee met and decided to invoke the relevant parts of our constitution which among other things allow us to conduct either direct or indirect primaries in which every card-carrying member of our party is entitled to vote," Mr Oshiomhole added.

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