National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, yesterday promised to support Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the presidential mandate to reconcile the warring sides in the ruling party.
Moments after emerging from a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Villa,Abuja,Oyegun dispatched a letter to Tinubu in response to the February 21 memo from the former Lagos State governor.
Tinubu had accused the APC chair of frustrating reconciliation efforts in the party taking “improper unilateral decisions” on issues affecting national and state chapters.
Oyegun,he alleged, had refused to cooperate by delaying the release of information critical to the resolution of crises in state chapters.
Tinubu in his letter entitled “Actions and conduct weakening the party from within said while the chairman had allowed the crises in the chapters to fester by his refusal to take appropriate actions, his decision to take some “inappropriate unilateral decisions” in recent times in the affected chapters had created fresh difficulties for the reconciliation process.
However,Oyegun in a three paragraph reply to Tinubu yesterday said: “I thank you for your letter dated February 21, 2018, for your prayers and good wishes for my health. I wish you the same and pray that our good God keeps you strong and grants you His peace.
“Let me once again formally congratulate you on the peace making assignment Mr. President has entrusted you with. It is most challenging but I believe you will ultimately justify the confidence reposed in you by Mr President. In this you have my fullest support.
“Be assured, dear Asiwaju, of my highest regards now and always.”
He was silent on the issues raised by Tinubu in his own memo.
Oyegun was at the villa earlier in the day to confer with Buhari apparently on Tinubu’s letter,copies of which he had sent to the President,Vice President Yemi Osinbajo,Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
It is believed yesterday’s meeting was to enable the party chairman explain his own side of the story to the president.
Odigie-Oyegun arrived the Presidential Villa at about 3pm and left at about 3.50pm.
Apparently aware that State House correspondents would seek his reaction to the letter, he cleverly avoided them.
As soon as he sighted the journalists who were waiting for him at their operational base inside the Council Chambers Briefing Room, Odigie-Oyegun increased his pace as he was finding his way out of the premises.
Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State , on Thursday night hailed the wisdom of President Muhammadu Buhari in appointing Tinubu to reconcile aggrieved members of the party.
Speaking with State House journalists at the end of APC governors’ meeting with the President at the Presidential Villa, he said that the governors also have confidence in the leadership of the National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun.
On the allegation by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to the President that the party’s national Chairman was frustrating his reconciliation efforts, Bello said “We the governors and majority of APC members have confidence ?in our national chairman Chief John Oyegun, we also believe in President by appointing Bola Tinubu, our leader to reconcile some aggrieved members of our party.
“However, one size fits all will not work in all the states where some erring members need to be disciplined.” he said.