South East States must join APC to stop marginalisation by government – Oyegun

…As Andy Uba shuns reconciliation meeting

Amidst agitation for state of Biafra being led by the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that the perceived marginalization against the region can not end until some of the States join the party.

National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Chief John Oyegun, said this Thursday at the party’s national secretariat, during a reconciliation meeting organised by him to pacify the aggrieved aspirants at the recently conducted Anambra governorship primary.

This is coming as a prominent aspirant and one of the petitioners against the outcome of the primary election, Senator Andy Uba, boycotted the meeting.

According to Oyegun, Anambra is an important state for the party to win, describing it as “the gateway to the South-east.”

The National Chairman said: “It is important that we do everything we can, fair and square to bring Anambra State into the fold of the Progressives for a lot of reasons. Until we manage to bring few states into the main stream of progressives politics, we may not see the end of this continued cry of marginalization.

“It is important that we work and work very hard to win Anambra being a critical state in the South-east. It is not going to be a small political struggle. We must work hard with unity of purpose to breakthrough to the South-east in a major way to win Anambra.”

While appealing to defeated aspirants at the meeting, Oyegun said: “We are in politics and we recognize that each and every one of those who aspired for the office of the governor of Anambra state has a constituency. Each and everyone has something very significant to contribute if we are to have hope of winning the governor’s seat in Anambra from an incumbent.

“It is very important, essential and vital that we manage to hammer together not just a patch work of peace or 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.”

Also speaking to corroborate the position of the National Chairman, former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, said: “Unless you go into the ruling party and make meaningful contributions, you will not have moral standing to ask why don’t we have this or that.”

While congratulating all the defeated aspirants for aspiring to be the candidate, he urged them to accept the outcome of the primary poll and move on.

“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.”

While speaking on behalf of all the aspirants at the meeting, Bart Nwibe, urged the party and the Presidency to actively step into the matter.

“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.”

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