APC leader, Adams Oshiomole
The national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomole has said the Department of State Services is not obligated to demand for his resignation.
“I wasn’t hired by DSS and I cannot be requested by DSS to resign or to retain the job. APC is a structured party we have organs. I know the processes and procedures,” Oshiomhole said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“I believed the DSS also understand their own role in the system. It is not up to them to demand the resignation of a party chairman whether that party chairman is that of a ruling party or the opposition.”
There has been ongoing issues rocking the ruling party as some state governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo and Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun are aggrieved over the APC primaries.
In the last few weeks, there have been protests against Oshiomhole and the party hierarchy on allegations that Oshiomhole was biased in the outcome of the party’s primary elections.
At least three state governors Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun, Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo and River’s Rochas Okorocha are miffed by the conduct of the primaries in their states.
The rancour-filled primaries in Zamfara saw the Independent National Electoral Commission banning the APC from presenting any candidate in the next state for the 2019 general elections.
States like Rivers. Kaduna, Adamawa and Ondo have ongoing crises that some stakeholders involved said have not been properly handled by the party leadership.
Earlier in October, Nigerian First Lady Aisha Buhari criticised the party for removing some aspirants’ names from the lists of persons to contest election primaries.
Mrs Buhari said the party primaries were against the tenets of the party such that it would not be difficult to dissociate her from the process.
One of the aggrieved governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo State accused the APC chair of deliberately scheming out his preferred governorship aspirant Uche Nwosu from emerging APC’s governorship candidate in the state.
Oshiomhole was also accused of collecting bribe from a chieftain of the party during the party’s primaries.
Following this Oshiomole was allegedly arrested, detained and granted administrative bail by DSS, after a nine-hour marathon interrogation over allegations of collecting bribe during his party’s primary elections.
He left the country for the United Kingdom on Tuesday after he his purported interrogation and visited the DSS office again on Sunday after he returned.
Oshiomole, however, claimed his two times encounter with the DSS is only based on a regular routine of visiting the security agency to discuss security issues in the country.
“I believed it is their right to have a conversation with anyone who in their opinion can assist them in their mandate in ensuring Nigeria is save and secured as we moved towards 2019 election,” Oshiomole affirmed.