For the first time since he left office last year, former National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has spoken on the raging crisis in the ruling party and blamed it on his successor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.

A blunt Odigie-Oyegun declared that Oshiomhole lacks the capacity to move the APC forward.

Apparently reacting to a statement which six South-South state APC Chairmen issued at the weekend, where they alleged that the current challenges facing the party were the landmines left by him, Odigie-Oyegun asserted that Oshiomhole lacked the temperament required to run a political party.

He added that the APC Chairman was bereft of the capacity to manage the different interests and tendencies that constitute a political party.

Through a statement signed by his Adviser on Public Affairs, Chief Ray Morphy, the former APC Chairman advised Oshiomhole and the state chairmen to leave him alone and face their duties of running the party which seems to be overwhelming them. 
He added that the dwindling fortunes of the party, were caused by Oshiomhole.

Odigie-Oyegun said: “He (Oshiomhole) engages his mouth before engaging his mind, so he offends party members, so how does that constitute booby traps by me, the erstwhile Chairman.

“Already, the deputy national chairman has confirmed that Oshiomhole runs the party without recourse to the National Working Committee (NWC). He acts in direct opposite of decisions taken by the NWC.

“No minutes of NWC meetings which in any event take place outside the party secretariat. How would you not have crises in the states with the confusion that Oshiomhole created when he gave the states the freedom to choose their methods of choosing candidates for elections? Much of the crisis in states arose out of sheer incapacity on the part of the current chairman, how is this incapacity a booby trap by Odigie-Oyegun,” he asked.

Odigie-Oyegun said that many party men were against what he described as “the unfairness and injustice meted them during the primaries process.

“Only a bad carpenter quarrels with his tools. Indeed Oshiomhole is degrading and de-marketing the party; rather than seek to bring more people on board, he is rather chasing people out of the party with his style of engagement,” he alleged.