Describing him as a persistent meddlesome interloper, a
pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy organization – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS
ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has cautioned the national chairman of All
Progressives Congress (APC) Mr. Adams Oshiomhole to steer clear of the
governance of Edo state and allow his successor in office Mr. Godwin Obaseki to
concentrate and deliver democracy dividends to good people of Edo state.
Besides, the pro-democracy group said it was not in the
place of the chairman of a political party to dish out orders to either the
state governor of Bauchi Alhaji Bala Mohammed or the state legislature on how
to carry on the duties of the legislative arm of government.
HURIWA therefore described as an act of political
rascality and grandstanding the purported ‘directive’ by the national chairman
of All Progressives Congress (APC) on the Inspector General of police Alhaji
Adamu Mohammed to seal up the legislative complexes of both the Bauchi and Edo
state Houses of Assembles following disagreements amongst the law makers.
HURIWA lamented that the national chairman of APC has
been allowed by the powers that be a free reign to continue to create a general
climate of political instability and impunity just as the Rights group told the
politician that enough is enough.
HURIWA said: “This was the same unsavory and
undemocratic role played by this same overbearing autocrat and chairman of the
ruling party Mr. Adams Oshiomhole just before the close of the last session of
National Assembly which culminated in the widely reprehensible and criminal
invasion of the National Assembly in a bid to impeach then Senate President
Bukola Saraki by 100 hooded armed operatives of the department of state
services (DSS) under the direct instructions of the APC’s hierarchy to the
disgraced Director General of DSS Malam Lawal Daura. This action of the DSS
which followed persistent pressures by Adam Oshiomhole amounted to a coup
attempt which offends section 1(2) of the 1999 constitution which states that
the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed nor shall any person or
group of persons take control of the government of Nigeria or any part thereof,
except in accordance with the provisions of this constitution”.
“As a civil rights body, we hereby call on all Nigerians
to mount pressure on the national chairman of All Progressives Congress to
compel him to stop over heating the polity with his brand of cantekerous and
totalitarian politics which he has now taking to his home state of EDO whereby
he governed for eight years without any overbearing political godfather
breathing down on his neck the same way he now goes about attacking and trying
to dictate to the chief executive and governor of Edo state Mr Godwin
Nogheghase Obaseki”.
“We think that the reason Mr. Adams Oshiomhole is
emboldened to constitute a high political nuisance to his successor and to lots
of other political gladiators all across Nigeria including the newly
inaugurated governor of Bauchi state is because the anti-graft commission refused
to act on a petition alleging widespread corruption against the national
chairman of APC when he was governor of Edo state. It is this policy of
impunity at the highest levels that has motivated the likes of Oshiomhole to
continue to dabble into the domestic political affairs of some states behaving
like an emperor who can’t be called to order or tamed. He must be told to
respect the principle of rule of law and restrict himself to his part time
assignments as a party chairman. National party chairman does not enjoy the
power of oversight functions over governors."
In a statement by the national coordinator Comrade
Emmanuel Onwubiko and national media affairs director Miss. Zainab Yusuf,
HURIWA has tasked President Muhammadu Buhari to speak out and stop his party
chairman from spreading political messages of hate and rebellion and to stop
Oshiomhole from undermining the governance of these states.
“At this crucial stage that we have found ourselves, it
is detrimental to economic advancement of Edo state if the governor is not
allowed the free room to govern his state qualitatively because of the
undemocratic tendencies of the immediate past governor to still continue to
pull the strings and teleguiding the state governor and because the governor
has refused to become a puppet of Oshiomhole that is why his government has
come under attacks by the national chairman of APC targeting another APC
controlled state”.
HURIWA expressed confidence that whatever internal
challenges that any state house of assembly is facing, the members have the
capacity to find amicable and law based panacea just as the Rights group rules
out the unnecessary interference of such divisive factor like the overbearing
national chairman of APC.
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