Adams Oshiomhold, the National Chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), has given the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, the red card. He threatened to kick Ngige out of the party.
Trouble started over the refusal of the minister to inaugurate boards of parastatals under his ministry, despite that President Muhammadu Buhari appointed their members a long time ago. Oshiomhole wrote to Ngige to do the inauguration, the minister did not, claiming he had done three already. Ngige particularly mentioned the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), the board of which he refused to inaugurate because of an alleged N40 billion corruption scandal by the former board.
Oshiomhole, therefore, told State House Correspondents on Monday that in the name of party discipline which he resolved to enforce, “we will suspend the minister if he refuses to inaugurate the boards.”
The APC chairman added: “For me it is the height of mischief for any minister, you cannot purport to be an honourable minister and you act dishonourably and nobody is greater than the party.
“And if the President condones disrespect for his office, I will not condone disrespect for the party. And when we expel the minister we will prevail on the president that he can’t keep him in his cabinet; people who have neither respect for his own decisions nor have respect for the party without which they would not have been ministers.”
Mr Oshiomhole added: “No minister is above the party and they have taken undue advantage of the president’s fatherly disposition.”
Minister of State (Aviation), Hadi Sirika, is also in Oshiomhole’s cross hair. As the APC boss argued: “it is the same green pen that made them ministers that appointed these boards that they are refusing to swear in. And it is absolutely illegal for a minister in a democracy to prey on the powers of the board because the laws establishing those institutions are clear, that the boards have procedures to follow.
“So, when a minister sits in his office to appropriate the powers of the board in a democracy, not in a dictatorship, award contracts that didn’t go through boards, those are clearly abuse of office for which they are liable.
“I am convinced that what they are doing is not with the endorsement of Mr. President. Over the period they have tried to drop the president’s name but I tell them it is the same authority that appoint these people.
“So, we are informing them that it is either they comply to the president’s instructions or they comply with the party’s position or they go and administer outside the government.”
Mr Oshiomhole said APC leadership only has respect for ministers who recognise that they are a product of a political party “and we are not negotiating that.”
“If they did that in the past, under our leadership we will not tolerate it. They either comply or we will expel them from the party. When we expel them we will find out how a government can keep a rebel in the cabinet. There is no question about that,” he said.
