Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has given an insight on why he was quizzed by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).
TheCable on Friday reported that he was en route to Nigeria after visiting his indisposed wife, Iara, in the US, and subsequently meeting Bola Tinubu, APC national leader, in the UK.
The APC chairman travelled out of the country after he was interrogated by the DSS over allegations of collecting bribe during his party’s primary elections.
Speaking during an interaction with editors in Lagos on Saturday, Oshiomhole said he “saw DSS only once and it was a conversation, not an arrest or detention”.
He said: “The conversation centred around APC primaries. The question now is whether or not it is the DSS job to interfere in a political party’s issues. And if there’s an allegation of corruption, it is the responsibility of EFCC and ICPC.”
The former governor of Edo noted that the DSS did not ask him to return the next day, contrary to media reports.
Oshiomhole said he was billed to travel abroad on Monday but postponed the trip for a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari. He said he eventually left the country on Tuesday.
Furthermore, the APC chairman said he was not released on administrative bail, adding that Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi, did not come to pick him up from the DSS office.
He said: “I was the one who called Yahaya Bello and he came but I drove home in my own car.”
Oshiomhole lashed out at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for calling on Interpol to arrest him, and for insinuating that he had fled the country over the matter.
He said: “What would they have said if it was the PDP chairman that was invited by DSS, for instance over the dollar bazaar at their Port Harcourt primary?
“They would have said democracy is under threat and would have fired a letter to the UN as they often ridicule themselves.”
The former labour leader alleged that “a few important members of APC may be conniving with PDP because they preferred the impunity of the PDP era”.
Governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo and Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun are aggrieved over the APC primaries. They blame Oshiomhole for their inability to get the gubernatorial tickets of the party for their preferred candidates.
Amosun has said he does not have a hand in Oshiomhole’s invitation by the DSS. (The Cable)
I think Kola the PDP mouthpiece and his replicates in FFK and Reno should be more reserved and circumspect in their reaction and comments. That would surely make them less a busybody making comments that could not be farther from the truth thus diminishing their credibility. What impression is Kola giving about Nigeria and Nigerians when he, like Ben Murray- Bruce, would fire letters to the UN or its agencies making outrageously false claims. Please, criticise more intelligently. Only the fool would not know the source of Oshiomhole’s travail with the DSS; what is baffling is why DSS should get itself involved in internal party’s issues; the DSS has always been a source of embarrassment to this party and its administration; but Buhari would continue to tolerate the agency’s ill behavior maybe as long as it is manned by his own people.