APC Crisis: Adams Oshiomhole vs Rochas Okorocha
The ruling party, APC, has been in a mess since the beginning of this year but the tension has heightened since the beginning of the primaries for the 2019 general elections with several stakeholders pointing accusing fingers at the new elected national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole.
One of his most vocal opponent in the party is Imo state governor, Rochas Okoorcha.
The diminutive Edo man, Adams Oshiomole and Governor Rochas Okorocha have been throwing ballistic missiles at themselves since the Imo All Progressives Congress Governorship Primary have been conducted. The trade words have been lingering for months now, and I keep wondering who is more verbally reckless and has over bloated ego between Adams Oshiomole and Abiola Ajimobi.
How can a National Chairman of the ruling party be saying that Rochas Okorocha, the Governor of Imo state, has no electoral value and he is inconsequential to APC ahead of the 2019 General Elections? I quite agree that Okorocha’s political empire is crumbling due to his failure as Governor, but you cannot say he is a political liability to the All Progressives Congress.
Okorocha is a founding member of APC, and he left APGA, the party of the Ndigbo, in 2013. Because of the political action, he was heavily criticized and maligned by the Igbos, and his defection was seen as a betrayal of Igbo Identity then, so you must respect him. Until recently, Okorocha is the only face of APC in the South-East. I detest his style of politics and how he makes a mockery of governance, but President Muhammadu Buhari needs him in 2019.
Buhari should not rely on Sullivan Chime, Ken Nnamani, Jim Nwobodo, Orji Uzor Kalu, Ayogu Eze, Ogar in the South-East, most of them are paperweight politicians with little electoral value. Bamanga Tukur, the former Chairman of PDP, also said that when Bukola Saraki, Abubakar Atiku, Rotimi Amaechi, Murtala Nyako, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Abdulfatai Ahmed, Aliyu Tambuwal, Wammako, and others defected from PDP to APC in 2013/2014. The rabid supporters of Goodluck Jonathan said they were not needed, and they suffered a humiliating defeat later. In politics, everybody is important.
APC should learn from the last Osun Governorship Election. If Alhaji Moshood Adeoti and his teeming supporters did not defect from APC to ADP, APC would have won Iwo Local Government and they would not have engaged in the broad daylight electoral robbery, which they employed to ensure Gboyega Oyetola emerged as the Governor.
In APC today, President Muhammadu Buhari is the glue holding the party together. There are many aggrieved party chieftains, and yet the National Chairman will never stop calling the aggrieved party’s stalwarts derogatory and unprintable animals.
The trade of words is synonymous to the one that occurred between the United States of America President, Donald Trump and North Korea leader, Kim Jong-Un. The former Nigeria Labour Congress President, Oshiomole, must tread softly and must be called to order.