The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, His Excellency, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is a very blunt man who does not mince words! He says it as it without caring a hoot whose ox is gored. I like Comrade Oshiomhole very well; he is the best thing to happen to our great Party which was nearly destroyed by the incompetence and lukewarm administrative style of his predecessor.
Comrade Oshiomhole made a startling revelation while addressing leaders of the APC Kwara State when he said that the vaulting ambition of Dr Bukola Saraki nearly destroyed the APC! Comrade Oshiomhole therefore charged members of Party not to allow their personal and selfish interest to prevail over the overall interest of the Party. This warning is apt and appropriate and resonates well with me concerning the happenings in Cross River Party.
Some of us are allowing our personal ambition and selfish interest to destroy the Cross River APC. For the past four year or so, the Cross River APC has suffered intractable crisis and fragmentation purely and solely because some hegemonists and pseudo democrats have been plotting and scheming on how to seize the Party and put it into their pockets. I see no reason whatsoever why some body will want to take a Party made up of people of diverse interests and put it in his or her pocket. It does not make sense at all. This is a ugly spectre of the 17 years of PDP militarization and bastardization of our democratic values and ethos.
However, if APC truly espouse “change”, then all of us must purge ourselves of such undemocratic and dictatorial disposition. Gladly, Comrade Oshiomhole on the 5 August 2018 while addressing a cross section of APC Cross River leaders in his private office in Ado Drive, Abuja said during his administration he would not tolerate such people. He said he would not allow anybody to matter how high or mighty he or she think to seize and control the structure of the Party from the National , State to the Local Government chapter levels . He said he is working in conjunction with President Muhammadu Buhari to return power to the people! He said the days of principalities seizing and control the structures of the Party is over. He said President Buhari stand for justice, fair play and transparency; a philosophy the APC equally stands for!
This is surely heart-warming and definitely accord or strikes a chord with the change mantle of the Party. It follows that whether you are a minister or special adviser or chief executive of a Federal Government agency or a member of the National Assembly or State Legislator or Commissioner or Local Government officials, you do not have the right to dictate to the Party or to seize control of any organ or structure of the Party and impose your whims and Caprices on the Party. We are floor members and the Party is supreme!
So, those of us who still harbour such undemocratic and anti-Party tendencies must jettison them in his present dispensation. Anybody nurse or harbours such mind-sets must become born again. The mind-sets by some people that some others who join the Party before them are inferior or not supposed to occupy positions in government or Party must be thrown to the wind!
In the same vein, those who think that because they had occupy positions of influence within the Party previously or are presently occupying positions of clout and influence in government which give them the right to dominate should also jettison such line of thinking or reasoning .
I say without fear or contradiction that those of us who are lucky to be occupying positions in the present Federal Government from the State have a bounded duty and responsibility to ensure that the Party remains cohesive and united as we slowly and steady match towards the 2019 general election .
Okoi Obono-Obla
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