Adams Oshiomhole, former governor of Edo, says the All Progressives Congress (APC) will benefit from the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which is engendered by the grievances of five warring governors.
Dubbed as G5, the five governors — Nyesom Wike of Rivers, Seyi Makinde of Oyo, Samuel Ortom of Benue, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu — are among the stakeholders calling for the resignation of Iyorchia Ayu as the party’s chairman.
The call is said to be on the basis that the party’s presidential candidate and national chairman cannot be from the same region.
Speaking on Friday after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, Oshiomhole, former APC national chairman, said his party is on course to win in the forthcoming elections.
He criticised Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate, for not supporting a southern candidate, as well as the latter’s recent comments on the preference for a northern candidate.
“You now have the G-5 governors who said the understanding we reached in Asaba, voluntarily, both by PDP and APC governors, they stand by that agreement,” he said.
“[They said] that leaders must have character, and that if you are not yet president and you are not obeying agreement, and Nigerians are talking of national unity, you disobeyed the provision of your party constitution, which talks about rotation in order to service that unity, and you can go to some parts of the country and say ‘don’t vote for Igbo, don’t vote for Yoruba’.
“Those are very damaging statements. It would have been better if you said ‘don’t vote for this person, Obi; don’t vote for Tinubu’. That is fine. You talk to their persons. But when you talk about race — don’t vote for Igbo man — so, if he’s Igbo, no matter how good, he’s a bad man in his eyes; if he’s Yoruba, no matter how good, he’s a bad man in his eyes — at a time when we need national unity.
“If you ask me how we are doing, we are doing very well. Whereas the other is now battling with five governors that backed out and you find out how many governors they have, we have 23.
“Now, if you add 23 to five — I’m not saying the five are with us, but we have 23 with five — I guess that’s 28. If you subtract 28 from 36, it means only eight governors, in fact, seven, because the other one in APGA is not there.
“So, while he has seven governors working for him, we have 23 working for us and we have five who are neutral. You know when you are voting, when I was in ILO, you vote for, against, or abstain. Abstinence is as good as voting against.