I have no desire to return as APC chairman – Oshiomole

The former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, late Monday dispelled rumour that he was scheming to return to retake his position as party chairman.

While feeding questions from State House journalists after he held a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Oshiomhole revealed he was not intent on re-contesting for the position.

The APC National Executive Committee (NEC) had last month dissolved the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) headed by the former Edo State governor in a bid to reposition the party for future challenges.

At the conference chaired by President Buhari and other party faithful, the NEC set up a national caretaker committee headed by the Yobe State governor, Mai Buni, to manage the party for six months.

While speaking with the press, Oshiomhole said that his role in the campaign for the APC governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, was not driven by the to return as the party chair.

He said: “You see, what I want the media to interrogate is: when I was removed as national chairman, Edo was APC. So, do I have to win Edo to become the chairman? Do I look so unemployed? I’m 68.

“So, what they don’t understand is that it is not the office of chairman that made me who I am.

“It is my pedigree from my days as labourer in the textile industry to be the general secretary of textile workers all over Nigeria and becoming the president of NLC.

“There is no village I go to that people do not know me.

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“It is this that I used to override the godfathers in Edo State for two consecutive terms and even got the governor elected through elections, no violence, before becoming the national chairman.

“So, if you remove the office…it’s like our president now, though I cannot compare myself to him.

“But it is like President Muhammadu Buhari, by 2023, when his tenure would have elapsed as President.

“But those who believe in him, in 2024 and beyond, each time they see him, that trust they have in him will always be there.

“He bonds with the people, that bond was not created by the fact that he is the president, in fact he became the president because of that bond.

“So, it takes an empty brain to suggest that I only want to stage a comeback to become the national chairman. For what? To go and do a reset?

“So, my attitude is not to reply the noise.”