APC crisis: Oshiomhole, other ex-NWC members may return – Caretaker committee

Possibility of the embattled former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and other members of the dissolved National Working Committee (NWC), staging a comeback, was dropped in Abuja on Saturday by a member of the  caretaker committee set up to steer the ship of the party.

The member, Senator Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf (APC Taraba Central), dropped the hint in Abuja during an interview session with journalists.

According to him, through political solution and not legal fire works, some of the aggrieved members of the dissolved NWC, can stage a come back.

This is as he declared that the intervention made by President Muhamnadu Buhari on Wednesday, was not just to save the party from self destruct but to save the country from political instability.

“We have started calling our brothers and sisters in the National Working Committee. We have started talking to people who have gone to court and those who feel aggrieved. Like I said, it is a family thing. We will sit down and sort it out.

“We will meet our brothers of the dissolved NWC, and other aggrieved groups and talk to them. We will go to their houses, we will drink tea, then sit down and talk by telling them that let us be very frank and honest with ourselves.

“You are aggrieved, yes. But this is the way we can solve the problem or do you have a better way? May be some of them will still participate in the convention.

“But if they go to court they are creating more bad blood. But if they don’t go to the court, then they will consider them and say these are good family members, come back and contest again”, he said.

He added that the  dissolution of the NWC of the party was not targeted at anybody or group of people in the party, but singularly to save the party from self destruct and by extension, the country from needless instability.

According to him, “The dissolution is not to punish anybody. This is not to say there is a victor and a vanquished, no. It is just a way of making things to move forward. So that we can all sit together in one house, reconcile with one another and then carry everybody along.

“Even some of our brothers and sisters that are standing, some are on the fence and some have gone to the other side, we will go and meet them and ask them to come back to their house. It is the house they have built. It is everybody’s house and I will add nobody’s house too.”

On act of illegality being alleged to have been perpetrated with the NWC dissolution, Senator Yusuf said things that are legally right, may be politically wrong.

“You see when you are working to solve problems, things that are legally right may be politically wrong and there are things that are politically right and legally right.

“Law is meant for the people, people are not meant for the law. As far as I am concerned the fundamental thing is how do we solve the problem of the party at this point in time. What do we do?

“Yes, democracy is the rule of law, but is all based on consensus. Every law is based on consensus. If the consensus of the family is let us move forward by doing this, then so be it,” he said .

He explained further that all the 13 members chosen as caretaker committee members, were there because they have not taken side with any of the interest groups within the party or controversial in anyway.

The governors he added, have not taken over the affairs of the party.

His words, ” Whatever you are doing, can you extricate the governors? Does that mean that the governors are only governors for themselves, Or they are governors for the party?

“When you say whether they can hold two offices, they are political appointments. I am a Senator and I am in that group. So what is wrong with that. We are looking for people who will come and solve the problem.

“People who are not controversial in themselves. Assess that interim management and tell me who is controversial. Who has taken sides? Is it me? Is it the Governor of Yobe State, Niger or Osun? Are we controversial? Which side do we belong?

“We are coming to find the solution and nobody like I said is a victim and nobody is going to be destroyed by this arrangement. Everybody will have a participation. In the next six months, every part and parcel of every APC person will be in it.

“Nobody will be excluded because that has been the major problem. I respect Adams Oshiomhole. I respect him very well but circumstances breed circumstances. He came and he tried to solve the problem but then certain problems cropped up, and he is an activist. You will not take that away from him. He has passion. What ever he is doing, he is passionate about it.

“But probably the advisers around him did not advice him well I don’t know. but we will look into it and see how we are going to solve the problem.

“For me we are saving Nigeria and not only the APC. So for me, I look at what the President has done as the leader of the political party is to save Nigeria because if Nigeria is not saved, no political party can even exist.

“Today, if the insurgency that was ravaging this country had gone on, you and I will not be sitting here today. So first of all, let us save our dear country then we move forward.”

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