Will Oshiomhole be exiled to Fernando Po?

By Dr. Dons Eze

Now that they have done away with Muhammadu Sanusi II, the dethroned Emir of Kano, who has been exiled to Nasarawa State, we will return to Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, the embattled National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who was sacked by the court, penultimate Wednesday.

Since the Sanusi palaver, the Oshiomhole issue has been kept in abeyance, but we are returning it to the front burner.

One week out of the throne, out of the APC chair, it is pretty clear that only a miracle will save Adams Oshiomhole. Forget all these garagara the man is doing, Oshiomhole is gone for good. What we will now be talking is where will he be exiled to?

Some people had suggested Fernando Po, because Oshiomhole has fouled the Nigerian air and no state would be willing to admit him. The man has committed many sins He has injured many people, many members of his party. He has stepped on many toes, and thus had courted many enemies.

Loquacious, pompous, arrogant, overambitious and disrespectful, Oshiomhole who was made National Chairman of APC in 2018, had thought himself to be a mini-God, who must be worshipped and adored. He had always behaved like a headmaster and treated his other party members like kindergarten pupils, issuing orders to them right, left and centre. Anybody who failed to comply with, or who failed to obey his orders was visited with his wrath.

Adams Oshiomhole was at war with almost everybody in the party. He had fought his party members at the National Assembly, and boasted that he was going to change its leadership, but he did not succeed. He had fought many governors, lawmakers as well as some founding member of his party.

Oshiomhole plotted the removal of his countryman, the former National Chairman of APC, John Odigie Oyegun, and usurped the position. He is presently at war with his own Governor in Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, and with other party members in different parts of the country.

During the last general elections, Adams Oshiomhole courted many enemies. He imposed candidates on all strata of the party throughout the country, and this made the APC to lose some states like Rivers and Zamfara, even before going into the election.

Oshiomhole had set members of the National Executive Committee of the APC at war among themselves and had singlehandedly suspended some members of the committee. When his cup was full, APC members in his own ward, in Edo State, slammed him with suspension.

This gave opportunity for some of his party members who were not happy with him to take him to court. They argued that since Oshiomhole had become partyless, having been suspended at his ward level, he was no longer fit to remain as National Chairman of APC. The court agreed with their submission and sent Oshiomhole packing.

Instead of Oshiomhole to seek to discharge the court order that sacked him, or to file for a stay of execution, he rushed to a Kano high court, to the court of the same jurisdiction with the one that sacked him, to procure a “jankara” judgement, and to claim that he had been returned as the National Chairman of APC.

Immediately after the jankara court judgement, Oshiomhole ran to Aso Rock, to have audience with President Muhammadu Buhari. After the meeting, he came out to boast that no human being would remove him as APC National Chairman, and that he was returning to his seat the next morning.

He then began to make a catalogue of those who were after him, because of their individual ambitions in 2023, and boasted of how he was going to deal with them. Oshiomhole was then reported to have said:

“The Minister working against me is none other than Rotimi Amaechi. I helped him, but he stabbed me in the back. I recognized his faction of the APC against that of Senator Abe and today he is leading a war against me.

“Kayode Fayemi is one of the leading governors working against me; I helped him secure party tickets for all his loyalists, even though Segun Oni and Babafemi were my good friends.

“Governor el-rufai is also one of those working against me, he and Fayemi have been using one Salihu Lukman to insult me despite all I did. That el rufai was one who came to me crying to help him get rid of Senator Shehu Sani and to replace him with his boy, Uba Sani and I sacrificed my comradeship with Shehu to please him.

“Godwin Obaseki couldn’t have even become a councillor if not for me. This is an open story. I am a fighter and he will pay for his disloyalty. I made him and will unmake him.

“As for Bagudu and Badaru, they know how I helped them and they will all suffer the consequences for their actions. Their court ambush will not work. I remain the Chairman of APC and we have filed a stay of execution.”

After the boastings, after claiming to be God who can make and unmake, and with the “jankara” court order in his hands, we expected Adams Oshiomhole to surface at the APC National Secretariat the next morning, to resume work. But he did not. Some other person was already sitting pretty tight on the chair, holding the seat for another person. Even his aides who wanted to show face, were all driven back.

By now Adams Oshiomhole must have known that “power pass power”, or that he had been used and dumped.