Challenges
It would be recalled that there a bad tradition in political parties in subsisted where governors insist on picking their successors and actually move to handpick all candidates for elections and just organise party primaries as a formality. Left to governors, they want everything in their state politics to revolve round them. For example, in Imo State, during the 2019 elections, former Governor Rochas Okorocha (now senator) wanted his son-in-law as successor.
He also nursed an ambition to represent his senatorial zone, which he eventually actualised. Not done, he pushed for his choice associates as candidates for various elective posts. But Oshiomhole would have none of that. He insisted that proper primaries must be held to pick the party’s candidates. This bold, decisive move stopped Okorocha from having his way in imposing his son-in-law as governor.
In Ogun State, the same script played out. Former Governor Ibikunle Amosun insisted that his choice aspirant must be governorship candidate and also wanted only the people he solely chose to be candidates for other elective positions. Oshiomhole defied him. Amosun sponsored his governorship candidate and others in another political party.
Oshiomhole once told Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, to obey the directives of the political party that gave him the platform to serve the nation. That was during the controversy over the constitution of the board of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF). Typically, he starred down Ngige and made it he would not tolerate disobedience to constituted authority in APC.
The Rivers State governorship primary where former Governor Amaechi took measures that willy-nilly led to the loss of the state to the powerful Governor Wike was a study in extreme ambition at odds with party governance and supremacy. It’s then not surprising who the choreographers are at the core of the current dethrone Oshiomhole project.