A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Benue State and one-time senator representing Benue North-West, Joseph Waku, has berated the national chairman of the party, John Odigie-Oyegun, saying he is not competent to hold the position he is currently occupying.
The former senator accused Mr. Odigie-Oyegun of “irresponsible behavior”, which he said is behind most of the crises rocking the APC.
In an interview with Daily Trust published on Friday, Senator Waku faulted a comment credited to the national chairman that the APC may look elsewhere for a replacement for Mr. Lai Mohammed, the erstwhile national publicity secretary of the party because the North-Central where the position was zoned to, allegedly lacks a competent person to fill the vacuum left by the former spokesman, who was appointed minister by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The former senator and APC governorship aspirant in Benue State in the last general elections, said after waiting patiently for the national chairman of the party to retract the comment, which he described as “irresponsible, insulting and disgraceful”, he came to the conclusion that Mr. Odigie-Oyegun “was not even qualified to hold that position in the first place”.
According to him, “Ninety per cent of the crisis we are witnessing in the APC today is as a result of the incompetence within the national secretariat of the party and the so-called leadership has brought us where we are today.
“That statement coming from him is a strategy for him to bargain with the highest bidder who could pay more for that position but I can assure you that will not happen because that position was zoned to the North Central. That office was not zoned to Lai Mohammed. I was a member of that zoning committee and I knew what we went through to get that position zoned to the North Central. I knew what I personally went through because I was representing the North Central at the first national convention of the APC. So nobody can sit down in his office and begin to arrogate to himself the powers to shortchange and do whatever he chooses to do with that position”.
Waku added that the party chair was merely daydreaming by saying the position would be zoned elsewhere because he lacked the powers to make that decision.
He noted that it was based on the same principle of zoning that the national chairmanship position, which Mr. Odigie-Oyegun is currently occupying, was given to the South-South, adding that the former Edo State governor “is not the best in that zone”.
“There are much more senior practicing politicians with credible records in the South-South yet that office went to him because the arrangement favoured him and we did not have anything against it. So his office and others remain zoned to the respective areas until the national convention decides otherwise”, Waku stated.
