Honourable Bernard Mikko, former governorship aspirant in Rivers State under the umbrella of the All Progressives Party(APC), aired his opinions on the resignation of party chairman Abdullahi Adamu, stating that members of the party have long expected his resignation due to his lack of neutrality in party politics.
Controversy arose after Adamu, the national chairman of the APC, submitted his resignation on Sunday night. Allegations also state that the chairman was told to resign by orders of the President Bola Tinubu.
Last week, the former chairman scheduled meetings for the National Working Committee (NWC), and the National Executive Committee (NEC).
Due to President Tinubu’s absence as he currently attends the African Union (AU) meeting in Kenya, the NEC and NWC were postponed and rescheduled for Tuesday, July 18, and Wednesday, July 19 where his resignation will be announced and selection process for persons to fill the posts will begin.
The resignation was said to have been submitted to the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila on Sunday. Adamu has refused to make further comments on the matter until the return of the president.
In an interview with ARISE NEWS, Honourable Mikko stated that not only is he satisfied with the resignation of the chairman but he had also expected him to “throw in the towel” immediately after the inauguration of the president because he had worked against Tinubu’s candidature.
“First of all, there is no crisis in our party, the APC. The second one is that his resignation should not come as a surprise. It’s even belated. You know how a leader emerges will determine how he’s going to lead his people.
“In politics you align the policies and programmes of government or the ruling party to orientation. This chairman has shown from the beginning his preferences other than the preferences of stakeholders of the party.
“From the beginning, he has shown that he is not a democrat in the spirit of party politics. As chairman of the party, having emerged as national chairman, he should have shown neutrality from the beginning but he never showed it, he came up trying to build consensus around his own preferred candidate who didn’t win.
“What is expected at that point was for him to throw in the towel and say look, ‘I prefer someone else, but the person didn’t win’ but he worked against the emergence of Bola Tinubu when tinubu emerged as the preferred candidate.
“He also worked against his candidature as candidate of the party. Now our President has won, and he has no choice. He doesn’t believe in the capability of the party and even the president to lead the country. I think what he should have done immediately after the inauguration of the president, is to throw in his towel. It’s good development in the government. It would even foster party unity.
“I think he should be a statesman as he has done. I didn’t expect that he should be coarsed into resigning from his position.
“I’m happy and majority of party holders are happy that he has gone for good.”
Allegation against the chiarman state that he had misappropriated the party’s finances. Sources from THISDAY claimed that a list of Adamu’s “sins” had been created as directed and sent to Tinubu who is in Kenya and due back on Monday.
According to a different party source, a group of party members met with Adamu Sunday night and convinced him to quit rather than be escorted out of the NEC meeting, which they believed would be too embarrassing.
According to Honourable Bernard, the only way to attest to allegations are to either perform an audit on party finances, or look into reports of the party mechanism by questioning adamu to give accounts.
“The national secretary of the party has written a letter. One that has been made public that the running of the party, particularly about the finances, has been very opaque and non-transparent.
“Nobody knows what is happening. The party hardly calls meetings and all that. So if the secretary of the party has raised an alarm about how the party has been run under him, I think it’s obvious that the finances of the party has been mismanaged. And to that extent, he knows the rules. He was governor before, he has been in the senate; he knows the oversight functions of members, not only the members of NWC. But the party supporters know how the party is run; they know how the finances of the party are being filtered away for no just cause.
“I think if that allegation has been made against him, he knows and I think the party can now go out and do a proper audit of the finances of the party.
“We shouldn’t let party leaders who have done this kind of thing to get away scot-free, so that they don’t just come and go away. Let him be called back, even after he has left to account for what he has done.
“He has shown his true colour that he cannot handle public finances at all.”
Glamour Adah.
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