• Buhari backs plot, okays ambassadorial soft-landing.
As the lingering in¬ternal crisis rocking the ruling All Pro¬gressives Congress (APC) threatens to splinter the party, the top hierarchy of the party has decided to sacrifice its national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.
This tactical move to ease out the APC’s National Chair¬man is seen as an interim meas¬ure to stabilize the ruling par¬ty and save it from imploding.
The AUTHORITY learned from impeccable sources that the outgoing Edo State gov-ernor, Comrade Adams Osh¬iomhole, whose second-term as governor ends on the 12th November, 2016, has been pen¬ciled down to replace embattled Oyegun as the party’s national chairman.
To firm up this ‘coup’ against Oyegun, which has the presidency’s backing, The AU-THORITY also scooped that President Muhammadu Buha¬ri has agreed to a “face saving” ambassadorial position for the out-of-favour Oyegun.
Party Sources confirmed that, “there is no going back on the decision”. Rightly or wrong¬ly, Oyegun who guided the APC to victory over the PDP has been accused of “killing” the party.
The choice of Comrade Os¬hiomhole stems from the fact that, like Oyegun, he is from the South-South geo-political zone - with the clincher that he has a solid labour background.
By a convenient coincidence for the APC, Oshiomhole’s ten¬ure as governor will be ending in a matter of weeks.
Several party sources with knowledge about this devel¬opment that The AUTHORI¬TY sounded out hope that Os¬hiomhole will be able to build the APC into a formidable “pop¬ulist” party, a “ party in every sense of the word.”
As a specific diversionary tactic and to create the condi¬tion necessary for the scripted scenario to play out, Oyegun is expected to ‘resign’ - a quirky, cloned template of PDP succes¬sion intrigues then.
It will be recalled that fol¬lowing the recent APC gov¬ernorship primary election in Ondo State that produced a candidate who is not Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu’s choice, Tinu¬bu openly called for Oyegun’s resignation, a position Oyegun dismissed out of hand.
According to a miffed Oye¬gun, “Yes, I agree that the nature of the statement was a bit harsh. The methods of getting rid of a national chairman, if that is what I will call it, are spelt out in the constitution; they don’t take place on the pages of news¬papers.”
Although Tinubu and Oye¬gun shook hands and exchanged pleasantries during Buhari’s re¬cent book launch in Abuja, their relationship appeared to have been irreparably damaged.
Apparently tipping the scale against Oyegun, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar re-cently expressed a public posi¬tion which apparently backed Tinubu.
The Deputy National Pub¬licity Secretary of the APC, Timi Frank, also recently ac¬cused Oyegun of mismanaging the party, alleging that a lot of things have gone wrong in the APC because of Oyegun’s lead¬ership style.
Frank, who described Oye¬gun as a political liability, said what APC needs is a leader who will add political value to the party. He also slammed Oyegun, saying he does not understand the constitution of the APC.
According to Frank, “This is the reason why I will continue to fight to ensure that the APC takes Nigeria to the right place but as long as Odigie-Oyegun remains as national chairman, we cannot achieve anything. Now that I am calling for his resignation, some may think it is personal, but it is not.
“We need a national chair¬man that will add political value to our party, we need a national chairman that can lead the party to victory during elections and we do not need a national chair¬man who will clearly be a polit¬ical liability to this party as we head towards elections.
“We need a national chair¬man that will understand and follow due process in carrying out functions within the party. We need a chairman who un¬derstands the constitution in words and in deed.”
But cogent posers are al¬ready emerging that could af¬fect the smoothness of this d
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