Former Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun on Wednesday lampooned Senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, over his role during the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries in 2019, describing him as “biggest and most destructive threat” to the ruling party.
Amosun and Oshiomhole, then APC national chairman, had squared up during APC primaries in the build-up to the 2019 general election.
The clash followed the disputed governorship primary in Ogun State which edged out the Amosun’s anointed candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, in favour of Dapo Abiodun, once Amosun’s ally.
The seed of discord was sown in October 2018, when two governorship candidates emerge
The Mohammed Indabawa-led panel sent to the state by the APC National Working Committee declared Abiodun winner, while the Derin Adebiyi-led state executive of APC announced Akinlade as the winner of another primary it conducted.
The emergence of two candidates in the party led to series of allegations and counter allegations. While Amosun’s camp was embittered that the Indabawa-panel did not conduct any primary, the NWC questioned where the Adeniyi-led executive “conducted a primary and declared Akinlade winner.”
Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee later backed Abiodun against Amosun’s man, a development which severed the former governors’ relationship.
More than four years after, Oshiomhole on Tuesday revisited the 2019 drama and hinted that the party spent a whopping sum of N2.4 billion to win the governorship elections in Kwara, Imo, and Ogun State.
Oshiomhole, who spoke at the book launch of the former APC National Vice Chairman North West, Salihu Lukman, also said that the party lost the Taraba State governorship election even though it invested N800 million into the election in 2019.
According to him, the need to spend N800 million in Imo, Ogun, Kwara, and Taraba was because they had strong opposition leaders in those states.
For Imo State, he said that there was Senator Rochas Okorocha, who was against the candidate of the party; Kwara had former Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki and in Ogun State, APC had Amosun who worked against the candidate of the party, Abiodun.
But Amosun in a statement he signed on Wednesday, lampooned the former Edo Governor, saying his narrative was not only fraught with lies, but also he (Oshiomhole) did not boast the requisite integrity to say the truth.
Amosun said APC conducted worst primaries in Nigeria’s history under Oshiomhole’s watch, describing him as
“APC’s biggest, most destructive threat.”
“It is not in doubt that I have participated fully in the formation and sustenance of our party, the APC, and I can boldly say that the party under Adams Oshiomhole conducted 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.
“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,” he said
