Some sketchy details of how the immediate past National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, who was forced to resign from his position on Sunday, ran into problems with President Bola Tinubu, have begun to come to public knowledge.
Adamu and the party’s National Secretary, Iyiola Omisore, were forced to resign following an alleged directive of Tinubu, whom sources claimed could no longer tolerate their excesses.
A source close to the corridors of power told ThisDay yesterday, that Adamu’s problems started from the time he conspired with some members of the cabal of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to push former Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, forward as the preferred presidential candidate of the ruling party.
While that was filed away at the time, the ThisDay source hinted that Adamu, despite the billions made from the sale of nomination forms and other sources, refused to fund the election of Tinubu, and allegedly denied the states funds, a move the president considered deliberate.
As if that was not enough sabotage, Adamu’s disposition and body language during the election of the presiding officers of the National Assembly, the source said, were clear indications to the president that the ex-national chairman was not on his side.
The source further alluded to the fact that Adamu’s attitude to the candidates of the party for the National Assembly presiding offices, Godswill Akpabio and T.J Abbas, when he told them to stop acting as if they had won already and that other contestants had the right to step into the race, was divisive and intentional.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back, the source said, was the former chairman’s statement after other principal officers of the National Assembly had been announced by the presiding officers, that the party was not aware of the decision of a rather independent arm of government.
This, the source explained, was further complicated by Adamu’s recent interview, where he openly confirmed supporting Lawan as the APC presidential candidate, but still delivered Tinubu at the poll.
These series of events, the source claimed, came off as red flags for Tinubu, who concluded, “There cannot be two presidents and immediately asserted himself by yanking them off their positions.”
Asked what the sins of Omisore were, the source said while the former secretary had never been a true progressive and, therefore, how he colluded with Adamu to “mangle” the finances of the party was completely displeasing to the president and he could not save him.
The source, however, dismissed insinuations of any backlash likely from the development, saying anyone in Tinubu’s shoes would also not have tolerated Adamu’s high-handedness.
