The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) John Odigie-Oyegun and some members of the Party’s National Working Committee (NWC) on Thursday, September 28 met with the Party’s candidate for the Anambra State Governorship election, Tony Nwoye and aspirants who contested the APC primaries for the election.
The meeting which was convened and presided by the APC National Chairman also had in attendance former Senate President, Ken Nnamani.
Aspirants at the meeting included: George Moghalu; Bart Nwibe; Patrick Nwike; Chike Obidigbo; Johnbosco Obinna Onunkwo; Obinna Uzoh and Nonso Madu.
At the meeting, Oyegun charged all the contenders to the office of Anambra governorship to work together as doing so will guarantee the APC victory at the poll in November 18.
Said Oyegun: “We have an incumbent government in Anambra state. We have all been through a most exciting period of campaigning for the primaries. The primaries are over, we have by God’s divine mercy a candidate. But a tree does not make a forest. We are in politics and we recognise that each and everyone of those who aspired for the office of governor of Anambra State have a constituency. Each and everyone have something significant to contribute in our goal of winning the Anambra State governorship election from an incumbent.
“So it is very important that we manage to hammer together not just a patchwork of peace, not a make believe kind of camaraderie, but a very serious unity of purpose between all those who aspired for that office, to act as a serious guarantee that we are indeed also serious in winning the Anambra governorship seat. That is why I have called you today and our Party’s elderstatesmen and leaders in the South East zone to act as guarantors of whatever we agree to do today.
“It is my hope and expectation that by the time we leave here, we will have one single fighting force of twelve persons, each of whom could have made us proud as governor of Anambra State. The state is very significant to us. For us, it is the gateway to the South East. It is important we do everything we can fair and square to bring Anambra State into the progressive fold for a lot of reasons.
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Until we manage to bring a few states into the mainstream of progressive politics, this continued cry of marginalisation, we may not see the end of it. So it is important, Anambra State being a critical state in the South East geo-political zone, it is most important that we work and work hard and work with unity of purpose to break through to the south east in a major way through Anambra State.”
Former Senate President, Ken Nnamani did not think differently from Oyegun. He would want the APC to use the Anambra governorship election to make a statement in the South East.
Nnamani said: “Our national chairman has summarised the purpose of this meeting and he has touched on very critical issues pertaining to the aspirations of the Party to make very strong inroad into the South East. I totally agree with him especially on the issue of marginalisation that you don’t stay under the rain when it is pouring heavily and start crying because nobody will observe. Unless you go into the ruling party and make meaningful contributions, you will then have moral standing to ask why don’t we have this or that?
“I will like to congratulate Mr. Chairman for initiating this peace move and bringing together those that aspired to govern the state. It requires courage to offer ourselves for service. It is not everybody that has that courage to contest election. It is like wrestling, when the umpire signals, it is not every able-bodied person who throws in the towel that would like to contest.
“I congratulate each and everyone of you and hope you harken to what the National Chairman had to say. I spoke out of the experience, observation and interest. We have people who have gone through the crisply of planning in Nigeria’s electoral planning. The chairman talked about unity of purpose but I want to add that we need unity of action.”
One of the aspirants Bart Nwibe said: “We have been looking forward to this meeting and I think that at the end of the meeting we will build the necessary synergy to help deliver our Party in Anambra State. We are all willing to do our very best but I also think that our Party both at this level and the executive will do the needful so that we will be empowered enough to return and deliver Anambra state and by extension South East into the APC.
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We are optimist that we will do our very best. We are on ground and if we do the needful there is no reason we cannot win our state. We have a candidate who is a very young fellow and I am certain he will bring certain kind of freshness but I think our Party and the presidency will have to step in to help us achieve this.”