By Ahmed Idris
The chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, said on Thursday threatened to suspend the Minister of Labour and Employment, Mr. Chris Ngige, for refusing to inaugurate boards of agencies under the ministry as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Fielding questions from State House correspondents in Abuja, Oshiomhole said the current leadership of the APC would not tolerate disobedience to presidential directives by any appointee.
He said the APC under his leadership would not tolerate ministers who abuse their office and disrespect the President by refusing to inaugurate boards of government agencies established by laws.
He 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 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 candidate in our system, nobody, I emphasis 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 contract that didn’t go through boards, those are clearly 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 appoint these people. So, we are informing them that it is either they comply to the president’s instructions or they comply with the party’s position or they go and be ministers outside the government.”
