Removal of Oyegun, satanic, Says Coalition

By Ken Edokpayi

The on-going political scheming by a section of the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to see to the abrupt removal of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as the authentic national chairman of the party has been described as “satanic, undemocratic and potentially capable of causing greater mayhem to the unity and strength of the ruling party.

         Speaking to newsmen in Benin City, the Edo State capital recently, under the aegis of the Coalition for Edo Integrity, Elder Nathaniel Egbeobauwaye, who is the national coordinator of the body, maintained that those who have been toying with the call to pile pressure on Chief Oyegun to resign as the APC national chairman were unmindful of the deeper crises into which their ill-conceived motive would land the party, even as he cautioned such prime movers of the “satanic moves” to borrow a didactic leaf from the sister-party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which is today battling for its very soul and survival because of improper, selfish and undemocratic processes engineered by some of its leaders who wanted to effect leadership changes in the former ruling party.

          In his words, “those who are about town lobbying people to chorus anti-Oyegun slogans to pressure him to resign as national chairman should read carefully the party’s constitution on the removal and resignation of a national officer of that calibre. They should have known by now that the party’s national chairman cannot be harassed or blackmailed to resign or removed from office, except by the pronouncement or resolution of the party convention or emergency National Executive Council meeting of the party. This is an exact replay of what happened to ex-President Jonathan when some PDP national leaders opted for the removal of Alhaji Bamaga Tukur as national chairman. So, President Buhari must deal cautiously with this untoward agitation for Oyegun's removal.

        Describing the agitators as fifth columnists, who were strategizing against the president ahead of 2019 elections, Egbeobauwaye maintained that as issues stood at the APC national leadership, there were no major, life-threatening crises ravaging the party that would have warranted a hurried rethinking or suggestion that the national chairman should resign.  He, therefore, cautioned the chief campaigners of the anti-Oyegun moves to save the party from degenerating into avoidable legal mess, like the intractable one threatening the unity and cohesion of the PDP at the moment.

      The national coordinator condemned in strong terms the excesses of the APC deputy National Publicity Secretary, Timi Frank, for allegedly being used and prompted by some national leaders of the party to haul insults on Chief Oyegun, treating him with disrespect and insubordination, insisting that such ugly developments, instigated for ulterior motives, were capable of destabilizing the party beyond the dubious imaginations of perpetrators.
      On the wild rumour that the out-going Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was being touted as a replacement for Chief Oyegun as national chairman of the APC, Elder Egbeobauwaye opined that if the national leaders of the party were looking for ways of settling Oshiomhole or engaging him in the government at the federal level, “they should not divest our own Edo south senatorial district, of its rightful, legally-earned position for someone who is just quitting an 8-year plum job and is strongly in dire need of a vacation.”

       He pointed out that considering Oshiomhole for any position should not be by gate-crashing him into anywhere, “especially,” he said, “as Edo north senatorial district where he is from, already has a plethora of representatives at the national level in terms of the party administration, especially in the National Assembly, where the district has a Senator and two legislators who are all principal officers propped up by the party.  As it stands with the arrangement, Edo south senatorial district has just two positions: national chairman and a minister of state.  And that number should not be depleted.”

          The national coordinator, Coalition for Edo Integrity, emphasized that those who make negative bones about the position held by Edo south senatorial district indigenes in the scheme of party affairs should not forget in a hurry the population and voting strength of the district, a district that, he maintained, holds over 57 percent of the total population of the state, “which should reflect in the degree of patronage it should still receive from the party in terms of appointments.”

          Elder Egbeobauwaye, therefore, cautioned against the plot by a section of the national leadership of the party “to embarrass or blackmail our son, our father and our leader out of the position of the national chairman of the APC,” insisting that the Edo South senatorial district, and in fact the people of Edo State, were solidly behind Chief Odigie-Oyegun.

            It would be acknowledged that Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has been a first all his life. A brilliant and principled public servant; A man who at the tender age of 36 rose to the position of permanent secretary at the federal level, taking charge of key federal ministries. He challenged money bags in the then Edo state and their collaborators in Abuja to emerge the first executive governor of Edo state.

This is a man who could have, quite easily, clinched key ministerial position in the General Sanni Abacha's government, but instead opted to become NADECO’s Secretary in exile. On his return from exile, he joined the Alliance for Democracy (AD) party and financed Edo AD even though he knew it was not a mainstream party, again a move he made on point of principle. For sixteen (16) years that the PDP was in power, Chief Odigie-Oyegun was wooed and cajoled to join “the biggest party in Africa” but he refused to bulge and abandon his progressive position in partisan politics.

It is, therefore, ludicrous and laughable, for anyone to think that at this point in his life Chief Odigie-Oyegun would depart from his hard-earned, established ways of principled life to settle for inducement crumbs, as peddled by his faceless detractors.

 The Navigator Newspaper