Despite losing two of its core members – former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Senator Ahmed Datti – the All Progressives Congress (APC) insists there is no cause of alarm.
\nAtiku was at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Secretariat this Tuesday in what he described as home coming. He appealed to those who turned their backs on the party, like him over two years ago, to come back home.
\nThe action of Atiku and others contributed to undoing the PDP in the \u013aast national elections, where he was a presidential aspirant, but lost to and backed President Muhammadu Buhari.
\nThe APC remains unfazed over allegations of ineptitude and harbouring corrupt elements.
\nSaid APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun: \u201cLet nobody fear that the defection of the former vice president is going to lead to any deluge, if anybody wants to defect, the day you are defecting is the day you bring out your heavy guns not later like the papers are speculating. When you stand and they look at your right and left, they say \u2018ah this man has done something great\u2019. So don\u2019t ever be afraid that there is going to be any massive defection. As a matter of fact the contrary is the case. The APC is growing in strength on a daily basis.\u201d
\nHe made the disclosure during his investiture as the national life grand patron of the Association of former chairmen, councillors and ward leaders in Nigeria at the Party\u2019s National Secretariat in Abuja on Monday evening.
\nPresent at the investiture were the Party\u2019s Deputy National Chairman (North), Sen. Lawali Shuaibu; Deputy National Chairman (South), Engr. Segun Oni and National Auditor, Chief George Moghalu.
\nOdigie-Oyegun charged the group not to be deceived by the \u2018screaming\u2019 and opposition rhetoric.
\n\u201cAnybody who is anybody is virtually with the APC today. The reality is outside the APC there is no other party that is truly settled, not even the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is. They are still fighting about how to get a chairman and the rest of it. Today, they say money has come to buy the chairmanship position. So it is something you should take pride in… It is just that the remnants of the PDP have found their voice so they are screaming very loud and we think that the whole country is upside down. It is not. The country is making steady progress and your party is growing on a daily basis.\u201d Odigie-Oyegun said.
\nThe APC National Chairman while thanking the association for the investiture said group\u2019s association with the APC has come at the right time as the party has begun preparations for the 2019 elections.
\n\u201cNormally, I am not given to receiving awards because we know what has happened to that in this country. But I read the presentation you made to me and the significance of your background became very important to me. First you are former chairman, councillors and ward leaders in Nigeria. Once you have held office, your influence can never return to zero. So each and every one of you still has some constituency
\n\u201cWe are already taking the initial steps in preparing for 2019, I thought that was fortuitous, it was perhaps inspired by God himself. You represent a group that will be easily available at that level, 774 local governments and ofcourse all the wards in the country, which is a major outreach for the APC.
\nThe APC National Chairman urged the group to position themselves as key drivers of positive change in the country and shun unwholesome practices and conducts which have bedevilled many similar groups.
\n\u201cI do not deal with groups that are not principled, that do not have integrity that do not have beliefs as to where the nation is, where you want it to go. That is not ready to work and push this great big ship called Nigeria in that direction.\u00a0 We for a long-time travelled on the wrong road so today with all the difficulties that beset us, the kind of people we need are people who have a long-term view,\u00a0 who understand, accept that things are hard today, but are ready to work to bring to fruition that vision of a great nation. It isn\u2019t a long trek. I want to give you the assurance that light is already there at the end of the tunnel.
\n\u201cI use every opportunity to bring home the point. Change is still in its early stages. Don\u2019t let anybody tell you that Change is a matter of brick and mortar, how many roads you have built, how many vehicles you have put on the road. The visible things are important, I am not trying to downplay the importance. But we are where we are today, not because we haven\u2019t built roads, not because we haven\u2019t built airports, not because we haven\u2019t awarded contracts for electricity generation, transmission and distribution, but because our values are totally wrong and it is this wrong values that affect every other things that we do. It is at the bedrock of corruption.
\n\u201cIf we get are values right, that is the real fundamental change, meaning you accept now that certain things are wrong and you will not be part of it and we are able to get most of our citizenry to see that point, then real change has started.
\n\u201cThe run-up to 2019 has started and you have come at the right time fortuitously. I want to believe that your mission here, your predicating yourself to grassroots mobilisation for the APC is an act that has been inspired by the Almighty himself and that you will be faithful not just to that inspiration that brought you but also be faithful to this party, dedicated to ensuring that this nation experiences the greatness for which the almighty himself has destined it.\u201d He said.
\nSpeaking during the investiture, the Association\u2019s National Coordinator, Hon. Mike Omohimua described the APC National Chairman as a man of high intellect and political pedigree who used his political doggedness and experience to rescue Nigeria from collapse in the hands of the immediate-past PDP administration.
\n\u201cThe choice of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the National Chairman of our great party as the national life grand patron and chairman board of trustees of our association is for us to tap from his wealth of experience towards having viable and strong grassroots network ahead of 2019 continuity agenda.\u201d He said.
\nOmohimua said the association has a database of registered members across the 774 local government areas and 8810 electoral wards in the country. He said the association is proposing a national project tagged: \u201cOperation Recover Nigeria\u201d in line with APC\u2019s ongoing effort the rebuild the country. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite losing two of its core members – former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Senator Ahmed Datti – the All Progressives Congress (APC) insists there is no cause of alarm. Atiku was at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Secretariat this Tuesday in what he described as home coming. He appealed to those who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}