BY DAMOLA EMMANUEL
These, indeed, are uneasy times for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, whose national chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was reportedly grilled by the Department of State Services, DSS, on Sunday, over alleged financial impropriety.
The alleged malfeasance was reportedly committed while Oshiomhole served as Edo State Governor.
The APC national chairman was also reportedly scrutinised by the secret service over an allegation that he collected gratifications from aspirants as an inducement to favour them during the recently concluded primaries of the ruling party.
And for these alleged misdemeanours, reports had it that Oshiomhole was allegedly told to vacate his exalted seat at the APC national headquarters.
The APC primaries ended on rancorous note in some states, fuelling fear of implosion within the party.
In fact, the animosity within APC runs so deep that many political watchers believe it may put the party’s ambition to retain power in next year’s general elections in jeopardy.
It was in a bid to douse the raging fire that President Muhammadu Buhari, recently, personally took charge of the reconciliation efforts of the party; holding series of peace meetings with stakeholders, especially state governors.
One of such meetings was held at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Thursday, where the President hosted Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, behind closed doors.
Although it was not clear, Thursday, who filed the petitions against Oshiomhole with the DSS, there were strong suspicions that the Ogun State Governor and his Imo State counterpart, Rochas Okorocha, might be the unseen hands behind the APC’s national chairman’s travail.
State House correspondents put the question to Amosun on Thursday.
Amosun flatly denied having a hand in Oshiomhole’s current predicament, saying he was not a security agent.
“I think you are probably giving me an oversight role, and I am not a security person,” he told State House correspondents after the meeting with the President. “So, clearly, I think that question will not be for me. I don’t have to hide under a finger to fight. If there is need for me to put my views across, you know me by now that I will do it.”
The correspondents also pressed Amosun to comment on Oshiomhole’s whereabouts after the encounter with the DSS, especially against the rumour making the rounds that the national chairman may have fled Nigeria.
“I have told you those things are beyond my pedigree and you are asking me questions that I am not well suited for,” the Ogun State Governor insisted. “The one that I think I should talk about we have said it loud and clear that we don’t need to add any other thing.”
Amosun also did not see anything special in his mission to the villa on Thursday.
“I always come like this,” he said, “and I know that you will want to ask me this; and that is what you are doing. But, clearly and talking seriously, I think that all that need to be said. I think all of you can attest to that. That has been said loud and clear and I think saying anything further would amount to, probably, I sounding like a broken gramophone. I think I have said all that we need to say and we did it loud and clear.”