OSHIOMHOLE: CROSSROADS OF HONOR AND PERDITION – – The All Progressive Congress ( APC) is today confronting an existential threat of a very curious nature with a traumatic definition.

The time is definitely now, to clinically and courageously identify the cause of the debilitating affliction, currently suffocating and stunting the flourish of an otherwise formidable and buoyant political organization; a very unique formation with an earlier prospect of being a beacon of peoples’ democracy on the African continent.

The survival of APC is too crucial to the actualization of the hopes and aspirations of mass of Nigerians for the party to be abandoned and left helpless to a deadly creepy virus now ravaging the progressives congress.

The precarious and chaotic state of affairs engulfing the APC demands an urgent, disciplined national leadership intervention to save the party from rapid decay and irredeemable implosion.

The true leaders of APC must now rise and stand forthrightly before the jury of history; it is now their inalienable obligation to reenergize and rekindle the flame of galvanizing imagination with which they engineered the historically unprecedented emergence of the political party- the mass people’s movement that unforgettably terminated the misrule of the sickening and monstrous political albatross which had arrogantly declared that it would govern Nigeria for the next sixty years.

The creative and unique fusion of some separately powerful political parties which birthed the APC was the product of truth telling that the individual parties could not defeat the PDP on their own. The leaders of ACN, ANPP, CPC, “NEW PDP” and faction of APGA jointly confronted the infallible but painful truth that individual pride, and, perhaps, egotistic profiling, must be sacrificed for the greater good of the country. That was how the political miracle baby called the APC was delivered.

The situation today in APC requires the same kind of sober re-examination that each of the fusing units of the APC conducted in 2014. The same earnestness of purpose and patriotic determination is exigently and vitally required to rescue the progressives congress.

For any APC leader to deny the existence of a virus-like invasion of the party since the assumption of office by, Adams Oshiomhole, as its national chairman, is to be disingenuous and not forthcoming in a moment akin to an emergency rescue operation for the party.

The current crisis represents the arena where altruistic giant-spirited party leaders and worthy statesmen will append their indelible signatures to the quintessential chronicles of the times.

What will it take for APC leaders of integrity and honor to finally acknowledge that Oshiomhole’s tenure, thus far, has been inflicted with some kind of debilitating organizational syndrome with attendant huge casualties for the progressives congress. The evidence is overwhelming as incontrovertible that what could literally be labeled as Oshiovirus would deteriorate into a pandemic for the APC if no decisive and urgent action is taken.

A review of the mostly self-inflicted political catastrophe that the APC has suffered from Zamfara, Rivers, Oyo and Bayelsa clearly indicate that the kind of health-like political disasters that the Oshiomhole strain of virus causes are not the kind of cases that can be steadied with quarantine or containment, it is a sinister situation that must be eliminated and cured with an appropriate potent vaccine. ‘Oshiovirus’ must be eliminated from the life blood of the APC.

Right from the early days of his selection as national chairman, it was well known by persons with intimate knowledge, but untold stories, of Oshiomhole grave deficiencies in leadership and organization. In fact, most of the critics perceived of, Oshiomhole, as an unstable hand grenade waiting to explode.

Now, without a doubt, Oshiomhole has, unfortunately, messily imploded within the hallowed chambers of APC-right there inside the national secretariat of the party. Anyone who closely followed events regarding the APC national chairman between Wednesday and Thursday (4th and 5th March 2020) will inescapably and regrettably come to the conclusion that, Oshiomhole, is rapidly unraveling and undergoing a traumatic psychological meltdown.

The sanctioned national chairman’s conduct and reaction to the interlocutory junction granted by the FCT Federal High Court on Wednesady, 4th March wherein, Oshiomhole, was put on suspension by the court, pitiably exposes a man without the elementary essential leadership qualifications of self-discipline and philosophical equanimity.

Despite the fact that the FCT court put Oshiomhole on notice for the proceeding, the suspended national chairman in his characteristic combination of arrogance and obstinacy did not put in any form of appearance before the FCT court. But the next day, Thursday 5th, Oshiomhole, acted most contemptuously, unscrupulously and disgracefully; the suspended national chairman through his surrogates surreptitiously sought an ex parte order in a Kano court “re-instating” him (Oshiomhole) as APC national chairman. The Kano court, by the way, has coordinate jurisdiction with the Abuja court and, therefore, cannot nullify the order of the FCT judiciary. Oshiomhole know for a fact that the Kano court could not legitimately quash the previous order of the FCT court, but the disgraced ex-governor was intent on causing maximum confusion and, converting the national secretariat into a theatre of conflicting demonstrations with accompanying parade of armed security agents.

This is the odious shame that the suspended national chairman is willing to inflict on the APC in pursuit of his inordinate ambition.

Oshiomhole has staged too many despicable political theatres to the detriment of the APC. All his current efforts of crawling, kneeling and genuflecting before distinguished party leaders must therefore be shunned and ignored for the sake of APC’s survival.

Oshiomhole neither cares about the rule of law nor the irreparable damage that he’s doing to the reputation of the party in the way that he derogatorily treats the judiciary. The ex-governor seems to take pleasure in cavalier dismissal of the pronouncements and judgments of the courts.

Oshiomhole’s lust for power and his insatiability for the trappings of privilege could not make, the sanctioned chairman, to obey the court order for just a few days and, consequently, seek a review in the appropriate and civilized manner.

The suspended APC national chairman is a clear and present danger to the survival of the party. Just as Oshiomhole squandered the electoral fortunes of the APC through his now notoriously infamous ( dis)organized primaries in Zamfara, Rivers,Oyo and Bayelsa, the sanctioned chairman could easily wreak havoc in Ondo and Edo States in a way that would cost the party heavily in the South West and the South-South zones during the offseason 2020 gubernatorial elections.

Oshiomhole has again begun his usual desperate manouvres solely for his own survival but, Oshiomhole, must go for the APC to survive.

OTEGHE ADAMS