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ONYEDIKA AGBEDO
For the second time in a period of four months, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has survived yet another rumoured plot to remove him from office.
Although his tenure and that of other National Working Committee (NWC) members constitutionally expires on June 30, this year, it was strongly speculated that he would be asked to quit office during last Tuesday’s NEC meeting of the party held in Abuja. The speculation became rife when less than a week to the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari to reconcile aggrieved members, wrote to the President accusing Odigie-Oyegun of sabotaging his peace efforts. Although President Buhari promptly waded into the misunderstanding, the expectation was that the NEC members would call for Odigie-Oyegun’s head at the meeting for allegedly building bumps on the road to peace in the party at this critical time. But the NEC took a different course and came out with a different resolution after three hours of deliberation. They granted Odigie-Oyegun and the entire NWC members a 12-month tenure extension.
It could be recalled that a similar scenario had played out at the party’s NEC meeting on October 31, 2017. A day before the meeting, protesters had invaded the party’s secretariat in Abuja demanding for Odigie-Oyegun’s removal. With the protest, an earlier rumour that about 17 governors of the party were plotting to remove him gained public attention. But after the NEC meeting, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, who briefed newsmen, said the NEC had passed a vote of confidence on President Muhammadu Buhari and Odigie-Oyegun and his team.
Whether the said plots to remove Oyegun were mere speculations or there was an element of truth in them, the perception in the public domain with regard to the recent development is that Oyegun has survived again. He has beaten his traducers to their game for a second time. He has proved, according to Chuck Palahniuk, that “you gain power by pretending to be weak.” Now, those who gave him power and are seeking to take it from him know that he too is a master of the game.
Even though it was understood that the party’s NEC arrived at the decision to avoid passing through the rigours of conducting congresses from the ward to the national level and dealing with the attendant consequences with preparations for the 2019 elections already on hand, the development has no doubt put Odigie-Oyegun in a position to further tighten his grip on the power in his hand, meaning he would remain a torn in the flesh of the party’s stakeholders who are allegedly scheming for his ouster for at least another one year and four months.
But it’s not yet time to pop champagne; but that is if he has understanding of the times. The party he is leading now is unlike the party he was elected to lead on June 13, 2014, which he led to victory in the 2015 elections. It is challenged on virtually all fronts, from poor delivery on its electoral promises to monumental crisis of confidence within its fold. On the other hand, Nigerians are becoming wiser by the day politically. As such, not many people covet the office he occupies today. So, he has to carry out his duties with tact if he must avoid leading the party to doom in 2019. Getting it right would certainly earn him greater honour and respect among APC faithful and in political circles. Besides, that is when he can truly declare: “The prophets of doom have been put to shame”, as he was quoted to have said shortly after his tenure extension was announced.
Born on August 12, 1939, in Warri, Delta State to an Edo father and Urhobo mother from Agbarha Warri, Odigie-Oyegun attended St. Patrick’s College, Asaba, and then the University of Ibadan where he obtained a Bachelors degree in Economics. He joined the federal civil service after graduation and served in various capacities as a development planner. He was appointed Permanent Secretary after 13 years.
In 1985, he voluntarily retired from service and went into business. In 1992, he was elected as the civilian governor of Edo State on the platform of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) during the transition to civil rule programme of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. He was removed from office after Gen. Sani Abacha seized power on November 17, 1993. He became a leader of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) after the restoration of democracy in 1999. On June 13, 2014, he was elected the national chairman of the APC.
