The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has said his party’s achievements since his assumption of office did not deserve the growing calls for his resignation by some party members.
The lingering feud between Oshiomhole and Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state has been a source of internal crisis within the APC, leading to calls that he should resign.
Speaking yesterday after presenting a card to President Muhammadu Buhari to celebrate the 2020 New Year, the former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) wondered why some people would demand his resignation in spite of the electoral successes recorded before and after the 2019 general elections.
Oshiomhole said President Buhari also garnered more votes to defeat his challenger in the 2019 presidential election than in 2015, stressing that “we would like to claim credit for that because if it went the other way, we would be crucified.”
He added that the party’s national leadership was able to ensure that its preferred candidates for leadership positions in the National Assembly were elected contrary to what happened in 2015 when the APC’s majority in the legislature was rendered useless because of the emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu from PDP as Deputy Senate President. Oshiomhole wondered how some people would be calling for his head one week after recording significant victories in Kogi and Bayelsa States.
He said, “You also know this proverb, ‘It’s a tree that bears fruits that attracts stone.’ You hardly see people throwing stone at a dry tree, palm tree. But if you see a mango tree, when it is its season, people throw stones at it when passing. I think that is my lot. But my report card is also very clear. You, my comrades, should also help in interrogating the process, how a performance of a National Working Committee of a political part should be evaluated. But I think the evaluation should start mostly, how many elections did you lose?
“I think there was somebody who wrote something in Kano that while the APC gave financial support; we gave financial support from our own resources, the PDP didn’t give kobo to any of their candidates. But we did that for the first time. We didn’t do it in 2015. I can point to a lot of innovations that we have brought on board.
“The reward for hard work is even more work. Those who are determined to criticize you, don’t ever deceive yourself that you have done well, they will stop. But I think for me, that is an incentive to recognize that we must continue to think creatively and see to it that we are able to manage the party. I am very confident that our party is stronger today than it was before I became the chairman,” he said.
