APC Was A Vanishing Party in 2019 – Femi Adesina |The Source

By Adesina Soyooye

Not many people knew that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, was a dead party, almost, in 2019. Insiders in the party had given up. The party was struggling. And hope was lost.

No less a person than President Muhammadu Buhari’s Media Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, revealed this state of affairs on Friday.

In an article titled: “Dave Umahi, Heart of Lion,” where Adesina celebrated Umahi’s defection from the PDP to the APC, and the sudden foray of the APC into the South-east, Adesina said the APC was a vanishing party in 2019 which was saved, just a few months ago, thanks to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s  victory in the Ondo State Governorship election.

Under the Chairmanship of Adams Oshiomhole, the APC lost a number of states which the party had won in 2015, to the PDP. It was blamed on Oshiomhole’s leadership style.

The limit was when the party lost Edo State to the PDP due to Oshiomhole’s bitter squabbles with his former ally, Governor Godwin Obaseki. When Obaseki was denied the Governorship ticket for a second term in office, he decamped to the PDP, and defeated the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu. The Oshiomhole/Obaseki feud cost Oshiomhole the high profile office of the party, and the sack of the National Working Committee of the party.

Adesina: “When in year 2015, Hurricane Buhari blew-in, the APC had 24 Governors, PDP had 11, and the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, had one. But due to schisms and wrangling, APC states began to dwindle till it was almost 18 to 17.

“Zamfara, Bauchi, Sokoto, Benue, Oyo, Edo, were all lost. If Ondo had not been won by Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu a couple of months back, it would have been the nunc dimitis of APC. The party was fast vanishing, and the auguries for 2023 were not good.

“The victory in Ondo State was good. It took the tally to 19-16. Then came the game-changer. Ebonyi came into the bag, and it became 20-15.”