Adams Oshiomhole, the erstwhile national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) says cowards in his party are afraid to physically confront him and have resorted to using a third party in attacking him.
Mr Oshiomhole, a former Edo State governor, made the remarks yesterday in Abuja, after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.
The former governor was removed from the party hierarchy by the National Executive Council headed by the president. Although on suspension before his National Working Committee (NWC) was dissolved, he had some powerful forces battling to remove him.
His ordeal is said to have links with the next general election expected to hold in 2023 when the administration of the president winds down. One of those leading the onslaught against him is the Director-General of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman.
Mr Lukman had also recently suggested that the former APC helmsman be sidelined in the forthcoming Edo State gubernatorial election, saying the party might loose if Oshiomhole continues leading the way.
After his visit to the president yesterday, the former governor described Lukman as a pig he won’t be engaging, saying his sponsors are cowards afraid of physically confronting him.
“You want me to engage in a fight with a pig? If you engage in a fight with a pig, the pig already is stained by its nature and you will wear your white garment, and in my own case, kaaki to go and wrestle with a pig? I will not,” he told journalists at the State House, yesterday.
“There is no village I go to that people do not know me and is this that I used to override the godfathers in Edo State for two consecutive terms and even got the governor elected through elections, no violence before becoming the national chairman.
“So, if you remove the office, its like our president now, though I cannot compare myself to him, but it is like President Muhammadu Buhari by 2023, when his tenure would have lapsed as President but those who believe in him, in 2024 and beyond, each time they see him, that trust they have in him will always be there.
“He bonds with the people, that bond was not created by the fact that he is the president, in fact he became the president because of that bond.
“So my attitude is not to reply the noise and it is coming from somebody who says he is an employee and appointee of Progressives Governors Forum, he is just like the cowards that are using him that are not able to come out.
“Otherwise, you should ask this guy, who is now an election expert. He contested for Senate against Makarfi, he lost. He even contested against governor El-Rufai during the primaries and he lost, before (governor) Fayemi unilaterally appointed him the DG,” he said.
