Oyegun lobbies APC NEC members ahead April 25 meeting

NATIONAL chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, is now lobbying members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) members of the party, ahead its April 25 meeting.

Checks by the Tribune Online revealed that the former Edo State governor was now at the mercy of governors on the platform of the party and certain members of its national caucus anxious to ease him out of the APC national secretariat on April 25.

A meeting with 18 non-National Working Committee members to seek their support ahead the NEC meeting ended in a stalemate, as the members failed to assure him of their support.

President Muhammadu Buhari might have also withdrawn his support for Chief Odigie-Oyegun, as sources disclosed to the Nigerian Tribune the president might have finally succumbed to the wishes of the governors for Odigie-Oyegun to be relieved of his position, in preparation for 2019 general election.

A party source said President Buhari was disturbed over intractable crises in most chapters of the party, particularly the North-West geopolitical zone and the seeming complacency of the National Working Committee (NWC) in restoring sanity to troubled state chapters.

The party source further argued that the fact-finding team inaugurated on Wednesday to look into the crises in Bauchi and Kogi state chapters of the party must have been informed by feelers the Oyegun-led NWC got from the Presidency.

Further checks revealed that a group, operating under the aegis of Forum of APC NEC members, petitioned the Presidency over the alienation of the NEC of the party in the running of its affairs.

In the petition dated April 6, 2017, entitled: “Save our party-APC,” which was signed by a national ex-officio and South-West coordinator, Omolayo Akintola, the forum claimed that the leadership style of Chief Odigie-Oyegun could lead to “preventable, avoidable and unnecessary intra-party cracks that the present situation might generate.”

The APC Governors’ Forum, led by Imo State governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha, in a recent meeting with the NWC, had equally kicked against the formal announcement of mid-term convention without a recourse to NEC.

While Chief Odigie-Oyegun had consistently complained over paucity of funds to run the party, a reason which informed his postponement of the mid-term convention earlier scheduled for this month, the party source further revealed that Odigie-Oyegun’s complaint that the party was broke because the Presidency starved it of fund was not lost on the president as an indictment.