Former governor of Nasarawa state and chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Abdullahi Adamu, said yesterday that the task before the new national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, was great.
He however assured party members and leaders that the pedigrees of the one-time president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and former governor of Edo state have prepared and capacitated him to make a success of his assignment.
In a statement issued in Abuja to congratulate Oshiomhole on his emergence as national chairman of the APC, Adamu said that Oshiomhole’s leadership marked the beginning of a new dawn in the party’s sure-footed journey to build a better and greater Nigeria.
In the two-page statement titled: “Great task ahead; enormous goodwill; good brands” Adamu congratulated Buhari and the APC on the choice of Oshiomhole as the new navigator of the party to victory in the forthcoming 2019 general election.
“When in 2015, Nigerians invested their mandate in the APC to provide good governance, we were never under the false impression that it was going to be an easy task.
“But through the provision of good and sharply-focused leadership by President Muhammadu Buhari, we have, so far, made significant progress and there is shared commitment to deliver on all of our campaign promises.
“It is in the context of this commitment that I congratulate our party and President Buhari on our choice of Comrade Oshiomhole as the new navigator of our party. I also congratulate Comrade Oshiomhole on his well-deserved election as national chairman of our party at this time.”
“The task ahead is great. There is, however, no doubt that there is enormous goodwill both within and outside the party to draw from in securing a second term in office for President Buhari whose dedication to ensuring national redemption cannot be faulted.
“Comrade Oshiomhole has the capacity to mobilize the support of Nigerians within and outside the party for the President, the party and our programmes. President Buhari, Comrade Oshiomhole and the APC are good brands in the effort at nation building.
“Nigerians should rest assured that our government and party under the leadership of President Buhari and Comrade Oshiomhole will show fidelity to the social contract.
Adamu, who is the north central coordinator of the Buhari presidential campaign, declared: “As a governing party, with the emergence of Comrade Oshiomhole, we now have a greater capacity to engage Nigerians in productive conversations on governance and national development.”
“Comrade Oshiomhole, who grew up in Kaduna where he worked and became textile union leader, is a cosmopolitan politician who comes to the present assignment with his remarkable pedigrees as one-time president of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) during which he galvanised the nation’s work force in a series of protests for public good, and as former governor of Edo, one of the most complex states to govern where he left his progressive and indelible imprints.
“The assurance by Comrade Oshiomhole leadership that came about through the process of strategic negotiations, persuasion and common bond in our party is that he will replicate these in the relationship and political interactions within and outside the party.”
He congratulated party leaders and members on the successful and rancour-free handing over of the baton of leadership by “the immediate past national chairman of our party, the urbane and unassuming Chief John Odigie-Oyegun to Comrade Oshiomhole, a thorough, tested and trusted leader who has the potential to further harness and transform the differences within our party into strength.”
