Oyegun Says Crying over Marginalisation Will End If APC Wins in S/East,

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The National Chairman of the the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has said agitations over perceived marginalisation by the people of the South-east will only end if the region joins the progressives fold.

Against the background of a long-standing agitations by the people from the South-east which recently snowballed it outright clamour for a state of Biafra by the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, Oyegun said the party was eager to bring the zone into the mainstream of progressives politics.

He said this yesterday at the party’s national secretariat, during a reconciliation meeting organised to pacify the aggrieved aspirants in the recently conducted Anambra State governorship primary.

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

He also stated that it was important for all to work very hard to win Anambra being a critical state in the South-east.

Oyegun 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 reason. Until we manage to bring few states into the mainstream of progressives politics, we may not see the end of this continued cry of marginalisation.”

However, one of the aggrieved aspirants who petitioned against the outcome of the APC governorship primary, Senator Andy Uba, boycotted the meeting.

Also, Paul Chukwuma and Uchegbu Adaobi did not attend the peace meeting.
While appealing to defeated aspirants at the meeting, Oyegun said: “We are in politics and we recognise that each and every one of those who aspired for the office of the governor of the state has a constituency. Each has something very significant to contribute if we are to have hope of winning the governor’s seat in the state from an incumbent.
“It is very important, 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 among all those who aspired for that office to act as a serious guarantee that we are indeed also serious in winning the governorship seat.”

Also speaking, former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, 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 speak out of experience, observation and interest. We have people who have gone through the crisply of planning in Nigeria’s electoral process. The chairman talked about unity of purpose but I want to add that we need unity of action,” Nnamani said.

Speaking on behalf of other aspirants at the meeting, Bart Nwibe urged the party and the presidency to actively step into the matter to help in achieving the set goal.

“We are optimist that we will do our 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 kind of freshness but I think our party and the presidency will have to step in to help us achieve this,” he said.

Present at the meeting were the party’s governorship candidate, Tony Nwonye, other aspirants, George Moghalu, Madu Nonso, Bart Nwibe, Patrick Nwike, Chike Obidigbo, Johnbosco Onunkwo, and Uzoh Obinna.