Buhari, governors, others must obey party constitution if I become chairman – Oshiomhole

A former governor of Edo State and leading national chairmanship aspirant of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole on Wednesday said if he eventually becomes the national chairman, the President and all those elected on the platform of the party must promote the core values of progressive governance.

He told young members of the party that his leadership will subject everyone elected on its platform, to the dictates of the party constitution and manifesto.

He said the current situation where the party appears to an opposition to its self despite controlling majority in the national assembly and the states, betrays the ideals of progressive politics

The former Labour leader said: “My hope is that, if by the special grace of God I become the national chairman, we do need to be very clear about all these and other issues and that anyone elected on our platform, including the President will be expected to conduct government and governance in a way that promote the core values of progressive governance.

“The current confusion where we appear to be the opposition to ourselves is not acceptable. We have majority in the National Assembly and control 24 out of 36 states and yet, when you read the papers, it appears that the opposition is so hopelessly weak that the APC becomes an opposition to itself.

“This is because people are doing their own stuff without a common understanding of the basis of our mutual contract, the contract between members of the APC as contained in two important documents which are the constitution and manifesto of the party.

“Given the privilege, we will subject everyone to the dictates of our constitution and remain faithful to the manifesto of the party on the basis of which we were elected by the Nigerian people.

“I believe that everything considered, we are still the favoured party, but we must not take the support of the people for granted. My task is to be able to assist government at all levels to work in a way that reflect the core values of the APC so that over time, we will be able to say people of this category appear t’ be the natural constituency of the APC.”

He said “the whole idea of seeking election on a party platform is that there is a burden of ideas to be shared and that bind us together to my recollection, we have  had any serious platform as a party where the agenda was to debate policy options of policy choices attached to each of policy hooves attached to each 9f the policies we fought for.”