•Pro-Oshiomhole forces pressure state chairmen
BARELY 48 hours to the much- anticipated meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the South-South stakeholders adoption of the acting national secretary, Victor Giadom, as replacement for the embattled national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, may have run into a hitch.
Investigation revealed that just as the agitation to oust the displaced Oshiomhole has polarised the rank of the Progressives Governors Forum, the umbrella body of governors on the APC platform, Thursday’s resolution by the South- South governors’ pushing for Giadom is becoming a hard sell among the governors.
The South-South leaders, at a meeting convened by the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, had in their resolution appealed to the APC NEC members to consider retaining the exalted position of the national chairman of the party in the South-South zone.
They went further to recommend the acting national secretary of the party, Honourable Victor Giadom, who is from Rivers State, for the office, “even in an acting capacity.”
A party source hinted the Sunday Tribune that two of the governors in the North-East zone have kicked against the adoption.
The source mentioned the Borno State governor, Babagana Umara Zulum and his Gombe State counterpart, Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya as kicking against the choice of Giadom.
He said: “Where Governor Zulum stands on this crisis is an open secret. He doesn’t want Oshiomhole disgraced out of office. For the Gombe State governor, he hopes the party can start on a clean slate with a chairman who has not been marked to belong to any of the contending camps. But to me, that is a tall dream.”
Zulum’s neighbour and governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, is, however, in league with a majority of the governors pushing for the Oshiomhole’s ouster.
Governor Buni, who incidentally is the immediate past national secretary of the party, is pushing for the retention of the office in his state as against the choice of Waziri Bulama from Borno State who was announced as the new national secretary on the eve of the Justice Danlami Senchi order that sacked Oshiomhole.
