The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has threatened to expel from the party the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, and Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, for their failure to inaugurate boards of parastatals under their ministries.
Oshiomhole said if President Muhammadu Buhari can condone indiscipline by the Ministers, he will not allow them do the same to the party.
Oshiomhole, who spoke with State House Correspondents against the backdrop of his recent directive to Ngige and Sirika to inaugurate Boards under their Ministries, said when expelled, they will be booted out of the Federal Executive Council as rebels.
Oshiomhole, who met with the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, said: “If the minister refuses, we will suspend him from the party.
“You know we must return to internal discipline.
“For me, it is the height of mischief for any minister.
“You cannot purport to be an honourable minister and you act dishonourably and nobody is greater than the party.
“And if the President condones disrespect for his office, I will not condone disrespect for the party.
“And when we expel the minister, we will prevail on the President that he can’t keep in his cabinet people who have neither respect for his own decisions nor have respect for the party, without which they would not have been ministers.
“There are no independent candidates in our system.
“Nobody, I emphasise, no minister is above the party and they have taken undue advantage of the President’s fatherly disposition.
“Now, it is the same green pen that made them ministers that appointed these boards that they are refusing to swear in.
“And it is absolutely illegal for a minister in a democracy to prey the powers of the board because the laws establishing those institutions are clear: that the boards have procedures to follow.
“So, when a minister sits in his office to appropriate the powers of the board in a democracy, not in a dictatorship, award contracts that didn’t go through boards, those are clearly an abuse of office for which they are liable.
“I am convinced that what they are doing is not with the endorsement of Mr. President.
“Over the period they have tried to drop the President’s name but I tell them it is the same authority that appoints these people.
“So, we are informing them that it is either they comply with the President’s instructions or they comply with the party’s position or they go and administer outside the government.
“We have respect for ministers but only to the extent that they recognize that they are a product of a political party and we are not negotiating that.
“If they did that in the past, under our leadership we will not tolerate it.
“They either comply or we will expel them from the party.
“When we expel them, we will find out how a government can keep a rebel in the cabinet.
“There is no question about that.”
Oshiomhole had on July 12, 2018 given a one-week ultimatum to Ngige and Sirika to inaugurate the Boards under their ministries.
But Ngige in a letter to Oshiomhole, published elsewhere on this news website, said he cannot inaugurate one of the Boards, Nigeria Social Investment Trust Fund owing to alleged fraud.
He said the Fund was being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
