Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha and Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun yesterday accused All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole of condoning injustice in the way he ran the party’s primaries.
They spoke in separate reactions to Wednesday’s defence of the party’s actions on the primaries by the chairman.
Okorocha, who spoke at the Presidential Villa, said Oshiomhole had been acting without President Muhammadu Buhari’s consent.
He insisted that his son-in-law Uche Nwosu should be the party’s governorship candidate.
The parties are due to submit the names of governorship and House of Assembly candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) today.
Amosun, in a statement by Commissioner for Information Dayo Adeneye, said Oshiomhole’s “resort to hiding under the false claims about ‘conscience and integrity’ is cheap.”
Okorocha, who denied he is heading for another political party, said: ”Oshiomhole is on his own in this whole thing. There is no Presidency’s support for him to refuse candidates who won elections and give wrong candidates who didn’t win election.
”This is the matter and I will simply say that he is not with the consent of the Presidency, he is on his own.”
He asked Oshiomhole to respect the rule of law and obey court orders wherever they apply.
Okorocha added: “This issue of treating court orders as tissue papers must stop; it doesn’t reflect the image of our party. He must act quickly to fix the integrity of this party because his coming in ought to have brought joy into the party and not sadness.”
Asked if the APC had started to disintegrate with the crises, the governor said: “Well, APC will not disintegrate for as long as the person, Muhammadu Buhari is still the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and remains the leader of this party.
”So we cannot give that credit to the chairman. He cannot disintegrate this party; the party is still intact, just that many people are hurt. Since his inception and after these primaries, we are losing almost five million voters because of anger, protest everywhere and he needs to be called to order.
”He has to respect the rule of law, respect court orders and do the right thing – obey court orders where applicable and not turned himself into INEC.
On whether Oshiomhole is sticking to Hope Uzodinma with the deadline being today, Okorocha said: “He can not be standing on Hope Uzodinma because that man did not win election. You cannot compare somebody who won 265,000 votes with somebody who won 7,000 votes.
“He (Hope Uzodinma) never won election and you cannot impose a candidate who is unacceptable to the people to the state, that is how serious the matter is now.
Asked the implication of submitting Uzodinma’s name to INEC by the APC, he said: “He can’t! I don’t think the National Working Committee will do that because in the first place, the National Working Committee sent a 13-man delegation who conducted election and 12 of them signed and proven that Uche Nwosu won the election with 265,000 votes as against Hope Uzodinma who got less than 7,000 votes.
”So they can’t do that. And there is a letter to that effect from the National Working Committee, saying Uche Nwosu won. There is a Certificate of Return given to Uche Nwosu, there is a police report saying Uche Nwosu, there is INEC report saying Uche Nwosu.
”So nobody can do that and if they do that, that must be the worst imposition in the history of Nigeria.”
On Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s support for Oshiomhole, Okorocha said: “No; may be he is being misinformed; if he is properly informed, he will not say what Oshiomhole is doing is the right thing.”
Reacting to the rumour that he was planning to join SDP, the governor said: “SDP? How can I build a house and leave it for someone else? I am in APC. I founded the APC. I gave the name APC and so this is our party and we must continue with the party and build the party for victory.”
In the statement, Amosun said: ”We state without any fear of equivocation that no one, at least not on the side of Senator Amosun, has requested or expected Oshiomhole to sell his conscience. The least we expect of him is to abide by the rules and guidelines of the APC. Oshiomhole knows, as we know, that in the instance of the last primaries in Ogun State, he has fallen short of the minimum standards of justice, equity and fairness. The resort to
hiding under the false claims about “conscience and integrity” is cheap.
“Oshiomhole knows that there were no other gubernatorial primaries in Ogun State other than the one that produced Hon. Adekunle Akinlade as candidate.
“He knows that the primaries into national and legislative offices were won hundred per cent by those declared winner by the panel he sent to Ogun State to oversee the exercise.
“In his conduct, Oshiomhole has exhibited disdain for the interest of the APC and that of the National Leader of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari. Senator Amosun remains committed to his convictions about President Buhari and nothing in the shenanigan of the primaries will change that.
“Oshiomhole’s claim that only three governors are aggrieved about the conduct of the primaries flies in the face of the nationwide outcry that remains loud, trailing the exercise several weeks after. We remind him that in any case, justice is not dependent on the number of whom it has been denied. Injustice to one is injustice to all.
“The overwhelming majority of members of the APC in Ogun State remain unshaken in their rejection of the gangsterism that has been visited on them in the conduct of the primaries. They remain resolved that the attempt to hand over their state and their patrimony to a rapacious gang of expansionists in the South West will be resisted, not only by members of the APC but by the entire people of Ogun State who are too enlightened to tolerate such abomination.”