Begging R-APC, not an act of cowardice — Oshiomhole

The National Chairman of the  All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, has explained why he had been begging members of the R-APC not to leave the APC. He said that his action was not an act of cowardice.

Oshiomhole, while speaking at the launch of a book by Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim (APC, Yobe-East), pointed out that the appeal being made to the aggrieved members was all about restoring peace and getting justice for those who deserved it.

He stated that it was not as a result of being jittery.

Oshiomhole said, “Throughout the weekend and up till today (Monday), many of the national dailies reported different stories with the impression that I have not been sleeping within the last one week as a result of alleged midnight meetings with aggrieved party members, who they say I have been begging not to leave the party.

“In some of the reports, the insinuations even went as far as saying that I made juicy offers to the aggrieved party members in stopping them from defecting. While I will not be too direct in reacting to such reports here, I will only say though I have been meeting aggrieved party members over whatever injustices they felt the party or some chieftains of the party had done to them. I have not been having sleepless nights as being reported, and also I am not in any way jittery.

“Rapprochement move, as far as I am concerned, is not an act of cowardice but a desirous endeavour in making peace since you can’t decree peace but only work for it. So, in a nutshell, I am not ashamed of doing that as chairman of a great party. To those who the rapprochement moves are being directed to, we want them to appreciate that we are more or less trying to prevent them from making a blunder of dumping palm wine for kain kain (local gin).”

Oshiomhole is fake, says PDP

In its response, the PDP described the former governor of Edo State as fake.

It said that while he boasted during the day, he would visit aggrieved members of the APC at night, begging them not to leave the ruling party.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, who spoke with one of our correspondents, said that both Oshiomhole and the national leadership of the APC had become jittery over the planned defection.

He said, “We will rather forget and ignore him. He is a drowning man and his party will soon become the opposition party in Nigeria. That is why he’s busy running his mouth.

“In day time, he goes out shouting, calling people names but at night, as from 2am,  he goes about visiting and begging people he had abused,  asking them not to leave and offering them positions and tickets.

“We should rather ignore him. We understand his predicament.  So, we won’t waste our time talking to or responding to a fake man who is heading a faction of the APC.”