Ghost of Oshiomhole
By Olakunle Abimbola On Mar 15, 2022

How does one frame this piece: return of the tortoise or the ghost of Oshiomhole? Both sweetly capture the shattering fate of Yobe Governor Mai Mala Buni, the APC provisional national chairman, who just hobbled himself.

But that was after he had run countless rings round the party put in his care, following the conspiratorial overthrow of Adams Oshiomhole and his APC national executive.

The tortoise, in the Yoruba folktale, swore he wouldn’t return to base until he was disgraced. Well, Buni would return from Dubai, via London, not exactly soaring high — no thanks to alleged devious ploys by the body he heads.


In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the evil Lady Macbeth thought the woes of her pliant, regicidal husband would end with Macbeth’s murder of Banquo, whose sole crime was the watery witches’ prophecy that Banquo would not be king but would father kings.

Yet, Banquo’s ghost unnerved the Macbeths more than a living Banquo ever could; thus turning their rogue royal dreams into cold ash.

Like Banquo, like Oshiomhole — Buni and co are finding out. A much more powerful spectre of Oshiomhole laughs, to cold scorn, the stunning manoeuvres of the APC plotter ensemble, more than Chairman Adams ever could!

An alleged plot in Buni’s macabre drama was to gift former PDP President Goodluck Jonathan the APC ticket, pair up with him and, after one term, gun for president!

Goodluck Jonathan! Under whom everything crashed though he had much more cash? Would that be Buni and co’s ultimate “change”, when the party had more solid stuff to point to, despite the eternal droning of the woe-begotten nay orchestra?

To be sure, that charge could be wild rumours, as APC’s coven of plotters turn upon themselves; but belch out bizarre stuff to roast Maradona Buni for out-dribbling all.

Everyone is a thief, that cynical Nigerian quip goes. But only those caught are the confirmed barawo! So, it might well be for Buni. No tears from here!

Still, however the Yobe governor emerges from it all, his nimble stealth and ghostly feigns, which have prolonged the tenure of his Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) from six months to nearly two years — and still counting — are nothing but extraordinary!

Extraordinary caretakers? Spectacular perfidy? Tremendous undertakers? Ha!

But again, right there, you have a stark Oshiomhole-Buni contrast: the one, the legit chair, for party love, held back pressing his legal rights; the other, the contrived chair, sits tight, as long as it bloody takes, juggling sundry tricks, party love be damned!

At the peak of Oshiomhole’s trials, his ruthless traducers even contrived to denude him in his native Edo, vital elections and all. Yet, the man stood firm.

Now who laughs last? In Abuja, Buni gets his comeuppance! In Benin City, Godwin Obaseki, emergency PDP governor, brawls to no end with new partisan sweethearts!

To boot, Philip Shaibu, Obaseki’s deputy and Oshiomhole’s life protege-turned traducer-in-chief, just received a fitting tongue-lashing from a garrulous Nyesom Wike! Obaseki himself joined the fray to tongue-lash Wike! The Edo rogue revolution is consuming own children! Who laughs last?

But back to sitting tight to skew party stuff for personal gain: while Chairman Buni was at his alleged high-wire national manoeuvers, Secretary John James Akpanudoedehe was also accused of feathering his nest on his alleged Akwa Ibom governorship!

But all of these skullduggery couldn’t have happened without a rich nest of plotters party-wide, bent on gaming others, in the push towards 2023.

The APC governors, to start with. From privileged party picks in the last set of elections, they decreed selves czars who must be obeyed, else their party dies! Their war cry? Governors, by hook or by crook, gobble up the party!

Yet, many of these folks are no more than butterflies that kid selves they are all-mighty eagles — eagles that could soar, to any height, to corral whatever they crave.

By Buni’s hobble, however, it just might dawn on them that they fatally mistake fleeting formal power for eternal control of the partisan street. Some costly delusion there!

The bit about Buni cobbling a sweetheart deal with Goodluck Jonathan may well be wild. But not so Buni’s fixation with PDP and its elected cadres — and well, even some certified noisemakers that add little or no value.

Indeed, among the most perplexing, of Buni’s frenzied partisan “sign-ons”, was the “unveiling” at Aso Rock, of the loquacious Femi Fani-Kayode, as APC’s latest capture — and before a petrified president, razed countless times by FFK’s reckless tongue!

To be sure that was, for President Muhammadu Buhari himself, a fitting purgatory. If he hadn’t succumbed to pressure from anti-Oshiomhole forces, perhaps he would have escaped the FFK ordeal which, frankly, added no value — not to the president; not to his party.

Before and after FFK had come other Buni “sign-ons”, in the fevered season of cross-party raid-and-capture: Ebonyi’s Dave Umahi (arguably by miles, South East’s best developmental governor); and Cross River’s Ben Ayade — two decent blokes.

Still, whatever their gubernatorial strides, they had no right to take PDP mandate into APC. The law on that may be muddied up but its immorality is crystal clear.

True, it’s sweet karma seeing PDP being paid back in own bad coins. Under President Olusegun Obasanjo, the ruling PDP was a menace to the opposition, subverting them at will; and preening and bragging about its toxic conduct.

Still, how did that all end for PDP? And why should Buni not have learnt from the former ruling party’s mistake? In any case, the current tenure ruckus involving Umahi might soon engulf Ayade, and Zamfara’s Bello Matawalle — and poof!: Buni’s party-growth-by-partisan-raid rogue doctrine goes up in smoke!

Yet, there was an alternative — admittedly a harder road to follow, among deluded fellows: party discipline, party supremacy and shared values in the party’s social democratic charter, which Oshiomhole tried so hard to push.

Yes, not a few accused Oshiomhole of high-handedness and stuff — fair calls, perhaps. But with hindsight, could the ruling party under Oshiomhole, warts and all, have fared worse than this shifty mess Buni has foisted on everyone?

Buni’s flighty CECPC seems as far from delivering the APC convention to elect a new national executive, as it was in June 2020 when it assumed office in a stunning railroad.

Though APC continues to bandy a March 26 date, its path is littered with a slew of booby traps, allegedly planted there by Buni’s sit-tight CECPC. Yet, the 2023 elections are around the bend!

Pastor Tunde Bakare, nobody’s poodle, shuttled once on the Lagos-Ibadan rail and crowed: whoever comes after Buhari must continue on his twin-strides of infrastructure (rail, roads and air) and agriculture — two relatable sound bytes Buni should have grabbed to grow the APC as interim chair.

Instead, Buni’s CECPC blundered into a jungle of intrigues, got fixated with sterile PDP capture, and risks hobbling off in disgrace, leaving their party in peril.

Buni’s is the classic tragedy of a sane path insanely not taken!

springer:
Oshiomole will bounce back strongly. He has been silent for a very long which means he has been on his drawing board.

springer:
Oshiomole will bounce back strongly. He has been silent for a very long which means he has been on his drawing board.

springer:
Oshiomole will bounce back strongly. He has been silent for a very long which means he has been on his drawing board.

Dsalvo:


I have been a fan of Oshiomhole from his labour activist days. A Nigerian hero who always tried to do the right things because of his belief that the ends justifies the means.

Oshiomhole did the right thing maintaining a low profile.

He now has the satisfaction of watching his traducers fck up so badly that a ruling Party, with only two terms served, now looks to be commiting political suicide.

All this because some hijacked a ruling Party for their own myopic desires. pPeople who have never built anything politically important and don't understand that respecting and nurturing a political platform is what gives all political players their political life and political power.

Imagine the crudeness of Buni wanting to impose GEJ on APC so he can be President in 4 years thereafter?

springer:
Oshiomole will bounce back strongly. He has been silent for a very long which means he has been on his drawing board.

Truthisunique3:
I am disappointed in this Tinubu newspaper

If you are so pained it doesn't mean you shouldn't hide your frustrations and pretend you are unbias as a journalist

Oshomole is dead and buried in Edo and he can't do anything nationally

Parachoko:
Unless Tinubu becomes the president, I don't see Oshiomole bouncing back.

Buhari is to be blame for all this problem in APC.

Parachoko:
Unless Tinubu becomes the president, I don't see Oshiomole bouncing back.

Buhari is to be blame for all this problem in APC.

springer:
Oshiomole will bounce back strongly. He has been silent for a very long which means he has been on his drawing board.

springer:
[s]Oshiomole will bounce back strongly. He has been silent for a very long which means he has been on his drawing [/s]board.

Dsalvo:


https://thenationonlineng.net/ghost-of-oshiomhole/

DSC7:
Tinubu Newspaper have started their usual propaganda,,, from PDP to Oshiomole...