BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, John Akpanudoedehe has declared that the party will record a landslide victory in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
Akpanudoedehe made the declaration at the Buhari House national secretariat of the party in Abuja while receiving both the newly elected states’ chairmen and the outgoing states’ caretaker chairmen of the party.
“Nigerians will still chose APC. Talk is cheap, even when you sponsor crisis throughout Nigeria, we won all our By-elections. We inherited insurgency and we have delt with it. As we speak, not one inch of Nigeria’s territory is being taken over by any group. That is why they have turned themselves to criminals. When PDP was in government, they took over everywhere but today, it is different.
“The beauty of this event was that this programme was not planned. You were in Abuja for a different issue, when I got a call from you this morning that you want to see the national chairman.
“Incidentally, the national chairman is away from Abuja and I have to step in. Let me thank you being a statesman. I thank all of you for standing up against any youthful exuberance or kid nuances of people who may think to use the name ‘youths’ for destructive purposes.
“Nigerian youths are very brilliant, resourceful people. We want to thank you for standing in the gap when there were issues in your party. We had said to ourselves that we were not going to respond because it is not an issue. But we must be very careful not to arm PDP with the bullets against our party. I learnt that the new PDP chairman made a prophecy that we will scatter before April.
“I replied by saying that the Bible says take council together, it shall come to nothing. Speak the word, it will not stand, rather we will be stronger and stronger. Let me send a message to PDP, if we are talking about replacing APC, it can never be you because Nigerians are too intelligent.
“Maybe because the President is not the talking type. I am challenging anyone to show me any social intervention programme better than this government. People are collecting alerts for COVID-19 palliative. Youths, women, civil servants are collecting it.”
He chided the main opposition party, Peoples’ Democratic Party by recalling the alleged purchase a brassier worth one million dollars, “If you have a minister who served under that government and the Minister bought a Bressier worth 1 million, we cannot replace APC with Bressier government. We just got another information that another account has been discovered.”
The national secretary also accused the PDP of sponsoring the perceived crisis being formented by the youths. “What the youths did, they were sponsored to do. Nigerian youths are too intelligent to be misguided. We thank you for coming when we needed support.”
Delta State APC Chairman, Jones Erue, speaking on behalf of other APC State chairmen pledged their total loyalty to the party and its leadership steered by the executive governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni.
He said, “We want to say that our party, the All Progressives Congress is greater than any individual, therefore, its existence is paramount to us and we are not going to mortgage it for any reason. We are not going to destroy our APC for any reason. Therefore, we state chairmen resolve and we stand resolved that we stand with the leadership of our great party under the leadership of his Excellency, Mai Mala Buni.
“We are not in military regime, we operate a constitution. Therefore, anybody in whatever form they come to challenge the corporate existence of our party we state chairmen resolve we will stand against such force no matter who is behind the force because this is our party we have no other party apart from APC.
“We want to let the leadership of the party know and get rest assured that we are with them in this, the unison of our party so that our party will move from strength to strength no matter what it is. And the issue of any group of person thinking they can just hang up anywhere and arrogate power to themselves and say we dethrone, we enthrone, we scatter, we discatter, we state chairmen resolve that the national leadership should know that this is an issue we will ruthlessly deal with in our various states”.
He stated that APC is the only hope they have and are not prepared to give it out to anybody whether individual or group in the name of anything than the purpose for which the party was created.
“Because we are sure we are not ready to relinquish power at the centre to anybody and if we’re not prepared to relinquish power to anybody, we’re standing firm with the leadership of this party to say we will fight along side with you.
“The leadership of our party, we admire your courage in the face of all that is happening and we pray God to continue to give you the stamina to stir us to the point of victory in all our endeavors as a party.”
Erue assured the national secretary that the state chairmen also agreed that whatever name it is the CECPC calls it, whatever will make the leadership succeed the states chairmen will be part of it.
“If you here engage us constructively, anytime there’s any interaction anywhere and you need to use us to conduct to engage us, we are prepared to be engaged for the purpose of the sanctity of our party so that our party can go forward and we are not going to allow any group of person we mean it sir, we are not, our party will not be allowed to be disorganized by anybody no matter how highly placed.
“We resolve that any sponsor of crisis in our party should desist from that because the state chairmen resolve that they will not tolerate such sponsorship and if we know we will do the needful in our various states before the national will hear about it.
“Because of what we heard that some people are saying that they now own our party, they have taken over party, there’s a coup detat, I don’t know where constitutionality was thrown overboard and the people who are doing it are not members of our party because they are not known to us and if they are known, they should know the constitutional way to go about things.
“So, we stand by the constitutionality of our party, we stand with the leadership of his Excellency Mai Mala Buni and we will continue to give hand of fellowship, we will continue to give the backing needed, we will continue to fight in the trenches with you, we will continue to call it our party,” he said.
