For Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, they call him Comrade, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), this is not the best of time. Things are no longer at ease. Everything has gone sour. He has got no place to rest. He is being rejected on all fronts, hunted abroad, and not wanted at home. Adams Oshiomhole is now like a leper, even an orphan, with no father and no mother. He has become a lonely man.
From trade unionism, where he rose to the highest peak of the ladder to become the National Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Adams Oshiomhole joined the mainstream Nigerian politics. Through the courts, he became Governor of Edo State and served two terms. He then saw himself as an Oracle, an institution, who must be obeyed, worshiped and adored.
After serving out his two term tenure, Oshiomhole believed that he had grown so big to install anybody he wished as Governor of Edo State, and who must at all times, do his biddings, a dummy, who would have no mind of his own, who would do everything at his beck and call.
A very restless and highly ambitious politician, Adams Oshiomhole, having exited from office, and not having anything else to do, decided to stage a coup against his town’s man, John Odigie Oyegun, who was the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and took over the position. He was celebrated.
Diminutive, but loquacious, pompous, arrogant, uncourteous, impetuous and intemperate, Adams Oshiomhole, as National Chairman of APC, saw himself to be on top of the world. He was the Headmaster, while every other member of the party was a kindergarten pupil. He treated everybody like a kid, issued orders, right, left and centre, which he expected everybody to obey without question.
Oshiomhole had no respect for personalities, for offices, and for institutions. He threatened Ministers with a sack, boasted and tried severally to remove the leadership of the National Assembly, but did not succeed.
During the various primary elections for the selection of candidates to fly the flag of the APC in the last general elections, Oshiomhole was a law unto himself. He jettisoned the constitution of the APC, and began to impose candidates on the party at will. Through his brigandage or lawlessness, Oshiomhole made the APC to lose Rivers and Zamfara States without going into an election, when the courts faulted the methods he used in selecting flag bearers of the party in the two states.
Even though the APC had managed to retain the Presidency, by whatever means, the overall performance of the party nationwide, in that general elections, was less than impressive, no thanks to Oshiomhole’s style of political leadership.
Now, most APC members have become tired of Adams Oshiomhole. They want him out, and to no longer be their Chairman. They came to see Oshiomhole as a heavy load, as a liability, who must be offloaded for the party to survive. It is only some very few people at the top, with their vested interests, that are still keeping him there, otherwise Adams Oshiomhole would have gone a long time ago.
Back to his home state, Edo, Adams Oshiomhole is not wanted. He has been declared a persona non grata. His people no longer want to see his face. He has fouled their air, so they were out to deal with him.
Adams Oshiomhole who claimed to have installed Godwin Obaseki as Governor of Edo State, had thought the man to be a dummy, so he would be dictating to him. But the man refused to be anybody’s houseboy. He started to chart his own course of development, an independent course, since he believed that his contract was with the people of Edo State, and not with a single individual, called the godfather.
Adams Oshiomhole was annoyed. He decided to instigate crisis in Edo State, and got the House of Assembly split into two factions. Because he did not want Obaseki to do two terms as Governor, Oshiomhole quickly went and mended fences with his old friend, later turned political enemy, Pastor Osagie Ize Iyamu, who contested the Governorship of Edo State on the platform of the PDP against Obaseki, and asked him to return to APC. The aim was to truncate any second term ambition of Obaseki, ufor the election billed to take place, next year.
Ize Iyamu’s planned return to the APC was highly publicized. It was everywhere in the air. A mega rally was planned in Benin City, Edo State capital, to receive him. People were invited from both far and near for the occasion. Oshiomhole was to fly in from Abuja for the grand occasion.
Then, Godwin Obaseki moved in fast. He pulled the necessary strings and got the planned rally stopped. Perhaps, unknown to Adams Oshiomhole, he flew in from Abuja, and landed into the waiting hands of stern looking security officials, who escorted him to his house and locked him up there, all through the planned rally.
Oshiomhole was dumbfounded. He was shocked. He was downcast. What to do? Nothing. He was kept indoors all through the planned rally. His “godson” had taken the upper hand. He had humiliated him.
