The National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, has said he would not condone disrespect for his office from any minister or government official in the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government.
He made this known while interacting with the media at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Monday.
While the party boss did not mention names, his comment may not be unconnected with a recent spate with Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige.
Oshiomhole had written a letter to the minister directing him to constitute and inaugurate the boards of the four agencies and parastatals under his ministry within a week.
But replying, Ngige said, “Our National Chairman, I am in receipt of a letter referenced APC/NHDQ/ GEN-S/28/018/003 dated July 11, 2018, which was sent from your office and received by me on July 12, 2018.
“Ordinarily, I would not believe the letter was from you except for the barrage of media statements that came before I saw the letter. I read the contents of this letter with both amazement and utter disbelief.”
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Speaking to the reporters, Oshiomhole accused the ministers under President Muhammadu Buhari of taking advantage of his fatherly disposition.
He said, “You know, we must return to internal discipline. You cannot purport to be an honourable minister and you act dishonourably. Nobody is greater than the party.
“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.”
He added, “When a minister sits in his office to appropriate the powers of the board in a democracy — not in a dictatorship — and award contracts that didn’t go though boards, those are clear 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 appointed 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 recognise that they are products 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.”