All Progressives Congress chieftain, Bola Tinubu, says the APC turned into a fight club and this was what eventually led to the dissolution of the National Working Committee led by Adams Oshiomhole.
Tinubu said this in a statement on Saturday.
He wrote, “The National Working Committee, itself, became riven by unnecessary conflict. Those who disagreed with one another stopped trying to find common ground. Attempts were made to use the power of executive authority to bury each other. I must be blunt here. This is the behaviour of a fight club not the culture of a progressive political party.”
The former governor of Lagos State said some members went against Oshiomhole in a bid to forcefully oust him.
He said in hindsight, his fence-mending attempts were perhaps “too little too late”.
Tinubu, however, commended Oshiomhole for his efforts at building the party and helping the party to win the Presidential election last year.
“I believed and continue to believe that Comrade Oshiomhole tried his best. Mistakes were made and he must own them. Yet, we must remember also that he was an able and enthusiastic campaigner during the 2019 election. He is a man of considerable ability as are the rest of you who constituted the NWC,” said the APC chieftain.
Tinubu further stated that instead of trying to solve the internal crisis, many APC members worsened the situation by continually going to court.
He added, “It had been my hope that the disagreements could be resolved. After all, a political solution should not be beyond the ken of leaders of a major political party. But such resolution has failed to materialise.
“It was as if some unseen but strong force continued to stoke the embers. Instead of calling a prudent ceasefire, too many people sought more destructive weapons against one another.
“Order, party discipline, and mutual respect went out of the window. Members instituted all manner of court cases, most of them destructive, some of them frivolous, none of them necessary. In the process, a dense fog fell upon our party.”
He, therefore, stated that he was not surprised by the decision of the President, Maj.Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to dissolve the NWC.
Tinubu said the President’s decision must be respected and seen as an opportunity to rebuild the party and restore it to the path of progress.
Punch