Eshiorameh Sebastian in Abuja
Senator representing Edo North Senatorial District, Adams Oshiomhole has launched an attack on former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, dismissing his recent defection to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as politically desperate and declaring him unfit to lead the nation.
Oshiomhole, who is a former governor of Edo State and founding father of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), questioned Atiku’s credibility during an interview with Channels TV on Monday evening, monitored by SPEAR NEWS.
The interview came just hours after the former vice president was formally registered as a member of ADC at a ceremony in his hometown of Jada, Adamawa State.
Oshiomhole argued that a politician who had failed to provide leadership within his own party could not be trusted with the nation’s highest office.
“If Atiku, as a former vice president under the PDP, he could not fix or reorganise his party despite the influence he wielded, how then does he claim he can fix Nigeria?” Mr Oshiomhole questioned on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
He elaborated further, stating, “President Obasanjo gave him enormous leverage, including influence over several governors, yet he still couldn’t provide leadership within the PDP.”
The senator’s criticism extended to Atiku’s long and peripatetic political history, which has seen him switch parties multiple times since the return to democracy in 1999.
After serving as vice-president on the PDP platform from 1999 to 2007, Mr Abubakar defected to the Action Congress for his first presidential bid. He later returned to the PDP, only to help found the APC in 2014. Following his loss in the APC presidential primary, he returned again to the PDP, becoming its presidential candidate in both the 2019 and 2023 elections. His move to the ADC this week marks his fifth major party realignment in two decades.
The former Edo State governor characterised this journey as one of pure political desperation. He accused the former vice president of political opportunism, alleging that his departures and returns were driven solely by electoral calculations.
“Atiku had moved from the APC back to the PDP after losing the party’s presidential ticket and has now found ‘a new shelter’ in the ADC,” Oshiomhole said, questioning the viability of the smaller party as a platform for national victory and describing Mr Abubakar as “weather beaten” politically.
The lawmaker did not limit his criticism to ex vice president. He also targeted former Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi with even sharper rhetoric, recalling a past constitutional crisis.
“A guy who shut down Rivers judiciary because he wanted to appoint his own favourite as Chief Judge of Rivers State and once he could not have his way, the River State Judiciary was shut down for almost two years,” Mr Oshiomhole stated. He issued a stark warning about such conduct, adding, “If that man has federal powers, he will shut down the Supreme Court. As they say, if you start stealing a piece of meat from your mother’s pot, when you grow up, you become an armed robber.”
Oshiomhole further expressed scepticism about the electoral prospects of both former governors, saving his most dismissive comment for Mr Amaechi. “As for me, I don’t see anyone who will vote for someone like Amaechi,” he said.
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