A senator representing Kaduna central, Shehu Sani has said that the former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Oyegun destroyed the party before handing it over to his successor, Adams Oshiomhole.
Sani in an interview with The Sun, said the Oyegun leadership of the party was not interested in resolving crisis within the party.
The senator also said the previous leadership of the APC was not in tandem with the spirit and principles of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The new leadership of the party is the best for the party. He is not courting trouble; he is confronting a trouble, which he met. Adams Oshiomhole is the best chairman for the party at this material moment,” Sani said.
“The party has been destroyed, undermined, subverted by the leadership which he inherited. The last leadership was not interested in addressing the problems of the party and giving it a new focus in making it a party that is viable and that is truly progressive.
“The last leadership we had was a transactional leadership, one that simply wants to appease everybody and at the end of the day, end up displeasing everybody. It was weak and it was virtually not in tandem with the spirit and principles of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The crisis in the APC today, which has led to defection was a direct consequence of the failure of leadership of those whom Adams inherited. Adams is the best chairman of the party. If it is not Adams as chairman of the party, you could not have met me in the APC by this very time.”
Sani, who is having a running battle with Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, was listed among those who considered pulling out of APC.
But Sani said it was the intervention of Oshiomhole that made him stay back.
“I was among those who revolted against the party and we had to revolt because the party persecuted us. And the party marginalised us; the party made us lose interest in it. But now, the new leadership came with Adams Oshiomhole and he gave us all the assurances that things will change,” he said.
“So, that was one issue that led to my stay back. And the second issue was that there was intervention by people like Balarabe Musa, Adams Oshiomhole, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Femi Falana and the president himself which I respected and made me to stay back.
“The third issue is that those that we wanted to defect, told me that they were going home and that home was PDP and it was never my home. So, I couldn’t go to the PDP because it wasn’t a home to me. That was the issue,” he said.
However, the former party chairman countered, describing Senator Sani as an ‘attention seeker. ‘Oyegun said Sani’s position on his leadership of the APC were comments of a politician struggling for political survival.
He said, “This is not a time for history, this is not a time for people whose political lifelines are virtually being held together by very fragile threat or who need controversy as political oxygen to constantly establish their relevance; it is no time for people like that to be drawing unnecessary hearing around the political environment.”
, Chief John Oyegun destroyed the party before handing it over to his successor, Adams Oshiomhole.){kind=link}