Adams Oshiomhole is like an over-indulged child who cries and throw tantrums to get a piece of candy. And when he gets it, he cavorts and prances until another craving.
I watched Oshiomhole on ‘Tuesday Live with Cyril Stober’ in the heat of a labour protest in 2003. At the time, the Obasanjo administration was angling to introduce a new fuel price.
Oshiomhole, the NLC chairman, rabbled, roused, “huffed and puffed” on the show. He waxed “marxistical”, saying the Obasanjo government was not different from the military regimes Nigeria survived, and that it was anti-proletariat, insensitive and oppressive.
I remember, a viewer called in to censure the NLC chairman. The caller claimed he often saw Oshiomhole with “these oppressors” at Nicon Hilton, and that the labour leader drove in big cars like “these people” he was sermonising over.
I also recall that Oshiomhole had publicly endorsed Obasanjo’s candidacy that same year.
This is just a brief background of my confusion about his personality. Really, I have had a conflicted perspective of this ex-marxist ever since.
The allegation that he received bribes in millions of naira to influence the APC primary elections ossifies my confliction. Though this may be a fabrication by sore losers or just snitching. But where there is smoke, there is fire. The truth is, the elections were deeply flawed; many party members allege this.
And why is the APC falling apart under Oshiomhole?
I think, it is because he is a man with a formulaic aspect who thinks the “labour tactics” of stomping, shrieking and grandstanding always get the candy. Oshiomhole is still imprisoned in the mind of a labour leader. And he obviously lacks the temperament, patience, and discipline to run a political party.
A political party is held together by a pool of interest. The interest of every member must be accommodated no matter how insignificant. The battle chant of “solidarity” means nothing here; interest is everything.
Ironically, the APC is in the same “stew” the PDP drowned in, in 2015. The curse of victory?
However, I think the EFCC is the repository for cases Oshiomhole is involved with, and not the DSS. It is a ploy to intimidate him, but I hope he applies his “labour tactics” here – they come in handy now.
At the moment, the APC is the biggest threat to itself.
And by the way, Oshiomhole is reported to have “run away” from the country after the DSS interrogation, this I believe is in the hope of living to run away another day because the APC civil war takes no prisoners.
But did he really scale that fence?
Fredrick is a media personality. He can be reached on Facebook: Fredrick Nwabufo, Twitter: @FredrickNwabufo
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