National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir, has accused the party’s National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, of being the main reason for the travails of the ruling party. Abdulkadir in an interview published this morning by Sunday PUNCH warned that if he continues the way he is going, Oshiomhole would lead APC to doom.

He said: “We have a very big problem on our hands because as we speak, I see no genuine effort being made towards managing conflict among members. I have yet to see attempts to reconcile aggrieved members since Oshiomhole became the national chairman. I think this leadership took over in June last year and, of course, it inherited some backlash of various congresses that were conducted where some members had grievances. All these things were not addressed and we went with the carryover of some of these crises into the primaries.

“This was made worse by the fact that there was no genuine effort on the part of the chairman to provide leadership to resolve some of the inherited problems. Rather, he took arbitrary, often unilateral actions which created greater problems for the party at all levels. The 2019 APC primaries were the worst ever conducted by any political party in this country as far as I can remember. Certainly, you should expect a kind of impact, this impacted negatively on the performance of our party across the country. We lost elections where we shouldn’t at all; there were defections from party members in areas where such defections could be avoided.

“Without prejudice to the right of individuals to seek to belong to any political persuasion, it is essentially the responsibility of the party leadership to provide an atmosphere of harmony through the provision of a level-playing field for all members who are qualified to seek for the party’s endorsement to pursue legitimate ambitions. It is not for the party to create disharmony or expand disharmony as we saw during the primaries and immediately after. While it is true that we all cannot see things the same way, there must be an aggregate consensus in pursuing the interest of the party.”

Reflecting on what obtained in APC in the recent past, Abdulkadir said: “It is on record that we were able to manage our challenges in the formative years of the party because the interim national chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, did a good job of managing the various tendencies which came together to form the party. Chief John Odigie-Oyegun collected the baton and the party was further strengthened to become one which Nigerians were happy to associate with and we went on to defeat a ruling party and remove an incumbent president from office.

“You are a journalist, you can recollect how many states and how many seats we won in the state and national assemblies. Most of these gains have been reversed within the last one year because we have an individual who has little or no regard for the party’s constitution and proper procedure as national chairman. Political problems, especially as they relate to party politics, are easier to handle when those in charge have a sense of decency and are able to be fair to all when issues arise.”

Abdulkadir also said: “I am bitter about the poor performance of my party nationwide because it fell below our expectations. Besides, I am not one to celebrate mediocrity. We lost in places like Zamfara because our national chairman side-stepped the laid down procedures for party primaries and insisted on doing things which run contrary to the provisions of our party constitution. I have no regrets expressing the bitterness that we performed poorly when compared to the standard we set in 2015.”

Asked what future he foresees for APC, Abdulkadir replied: “Oh, a bright one. This can only be possible when the party is better managed. The truth is that the party cannot survive with the arbitrariness we saw during the conduct of the party’s primaries. The APC is a political party, whose health both now and in the future, will depend to a great extent on our ability to abide by the rules we set for ourselves by ensuring that party members are treated fairly.”

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