*Faults Oshiomhole’s directive on Bauchi, Edo legislatures
A pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy organization, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), described the national chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, as totalitarian and undemocratic regarding his meddling in the affairs of Bauchi and Edo states.
The group said it was not in the place of Oshiomhole to dish out orders to either the state governor of Bauchi, Alhaji Bala Mohammed or the state legislature on how to carry on the duties of the legislative arm of the government.
HURIWA in a statement on Monday, therefore, described as an act of political rascality and grandstanding the purported ‘directive’ by Oshiomhole on the Inspector General of police, Alhaji Adamu Mohammed, to seal off the legislative complexes of Bauchi and Edo houses of assembly following disagreements amongst the lawmakers.
HURIWA said: “This was the same unsavory and undemocratic role played by this same overbearing autocrat and chairman of the ruling party Mr. Adams Oshiomhole just before the close of the last session of National Assembly which culminated in the widely reprehensible and criminal invasion of the National Assembly in a bid to impeach then-Senate President Bukola Saraki by 100 hooded armed operatives of the department of state services (DSS) under the direct instructions of the APC’s hierarchy to the disgraced Director General of DSS Malam Lawal Daura. This action of the DSS which followed persistent pressures by Adams Oshiomhole amounted to a coup attempt which offends section 1(2) of the 1999 constitution which states that the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed nor shall any person or group of persons take control of the government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.
“As a civil rights body, we hereby call on all Nigerians to mount pressure on the national chairman of All Progressives Congress to compel him to stop overheating the polity with his brand of cantankerous and totalitarian politics which he has now taken to his home state of Edo... he now goes about attacking and trying to dictate to the chief executive and governor of Edo state, Mr. Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki.
“We think that the reason Mr. Adams Oshiomhole is emboldened to constitute a high political nuisance to his successor and to lots of other political gladiators all across Nigeria including the newly inaugurated governor of Bauchi state is because the anti-graft commission refused to act on a petition alleging widespread corruption against the national chairman of APC when he was governor of Edo state. It is this policy of impunity at the highest levels that has motivated the likes of Oshiomhole to continue to dabble into the domestic political affairs of some states behaving like an emperor who can’t be called to order or tamed.”