APC Crisis: Oshiomhole Visits Buhari, Says He Won’t Engage In ‘Pig Fight’ Over Party’s Chair

Former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, is boiling over the allegation that he wants to manipulate his way back into the chairmanship position of the party.

He expressed his bitterness on Monday shortly after he visited President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House.

Oshiomhole said he was neither jobless nor desperate to want to return as the party’s chairman, adding that the fact that some party stalwarts still held in him high esteem did not suggest he was working underground to return as chairman.

He was responding to the recent allegation by the Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum, Mr Salisu Lukman, who had claimed that Oshiomhole was making reconciliation efforts difficult for the interim committee headed by Yobe State Governor, Mr Mai Mala Buni.

He claimed that Oshiomhole was using the upcoming Edo State governorship poll as a bargaining card and a blackmailing tool to force the party to do his bidding.

Lukman had stated, “Everything is being done to ensure that the internal politics of the party is manipulated to create situations whereby Oshiomhole is forcefully made a contender for the position of the national chairman at the extraordinary APC national convention.

“Ordinarily, this should not be a problem. It is, however, disturbing that unacceptable strategies are being deployed to blackmail and bully all leaders of the party into making Edo election the only priority of the party.

“Even more disturbing is the clear indication that Oshiomhole and a section of the APC leadership that is working with him are not preparing to approach the Edo election based on fair contests.”

But, responding to the allegation while speaking with State House Correspondents on Monday, Oshiomhole said taking issues with the DG was tantamount to a “pig fight.”

His words, “You want me to engage in a fight with a pig? If you engage in a fight with a pig, the pig already is stained by its nature and you will wear your white garment, and in my own case, khaki, to go and wrestle with a pig? I will not.”

The former chairman asked to know how winning or losing the Edo election would be a factor in determining anything he wanted to become.

He spoke further, “So, do I have to win Edo to become the chairman? Do I look so unemployed? I’m 68. So, what they don’t understand is that, it is not the office of chairman that made me who I am. It is my pedigree from my days as labourer in the textile industry to be the general-secretary of textile workers all over Nigeria and becoming the president of Nigeria Labour Congress.

“There is no village I go to that people do not know me …I used to override the godfathers in Edo state for two consecutive terms and even got the governor elected through elections; no violence before becoming the national chairman.”

Citing an example with Buhari, he stated, “So, if you remove the office… it is our President now, though I am cannot comparing myself to him, but it is like President Buhari by 2023, when his tenure would have lapsed, but those who believe in him, in 2024 and beyond, each time they see him, that trust they have in him will always be there.

“He bonds with the people, that bond was not created by the fact that he is the President; in fact, he became the President because of that bond.

“So, it takes an empty brain to suggest that I only want to stage a come back to become the national chairman. For what? To go and do a reset?

“So, my attitude is not to reply the noise and it is coming from somebody who says he is an employee and appointee of Progressives Governors Forum. He is just like the cowards that are using him that are not able to come out. Otherwise, you should ask this guy, who is now an election expert.

“He contested for senate against Makarfi, he lost. He even contested against governor Nasir El-Rufai during the primaries and he lost, before Governor Kayode Fayemi unilaterally appointed him the DG.

“So, if he is now the spokesman abusing me and all of that, you want to drag me to his level? No! A gentleman does not wrestle with a pig, if you do you will always be stained and I don’t want to get into that.”