National chairman of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) Odigie Oyegun has said that the party was conscious of the fact that it could be voted out of office if it failed to meet the expectations of Nigerians.
Speaking on Tuesday when he was formally presented with the book “APC:
The Making of a Change Agent, ”authored by the Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution, Barrister Okoi Obono-Obla at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja, Oyegun said the ruling party has been vigilant to avoid the mistakes of the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) .
He said: “We created a machine that has started a significant move in entrenching democracy in this country. What is democracy? It is the ability to hire and fire. It was the first time that Nigerians had the ability of firing and it has become internalised in our political psyche. We know that we should not make the mistakes of the PDP. We
too now know that we can be fired and that is democracy.”
Oyegun lauded Barrister Obla for writing the book, which he described as an insider account of the merger process that culminated in the formation of the APC and admonished other stakeholders who were involved in the formation of the APC to document their record of events for posterity.
“It is important because in a few years, peripheral people like happens today in the case of June 12, sort of claim ownership of an event they know very little about… In fact, we encourage all those who participated intimately to document their record of what they think happened. Historians will then later take these slightly different versions considering the perspectives you were standing to watch the show. And we will eventually have a comprehensive rendition of what happened.
“It was the first time a merger of that type had succeeded. It is the first time people had the intense nationalism to make the degree of sacrifice that was called for in agreeing to a merger. We had three party chairmen, and a lot of other individuals- former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and a few others who participated actively. And we must not forget the role that was played by the new PDP.’’
Speaking with newsmen, Barrister Obla, Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution justified Monday invasion of the Lagos premises of The Sun newspapers by officials of the anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission , (EFCC), as he dismissed insinuation that it was a move to clamp down on the media organisation.
He said: ‘’ No. EFCC has not gone after the media. What happened was that media house was under an order of interim forfeiture so they went there to look at the property. To see that the property is not taking away or depreciating and there is nothing wrong with that.
They didn’t go because The Sun published any story that is injurious to EFCC or to government.
‘’They went there to do their work as part of their mandate to fight economic and financial crime and you know that media house is owned by a former governor who is under trial and if you are under trial, EFCC has the power to go to court and get an order of interim forfeiture of your property, pending the hearing and conclusion of the case against you.”
The presidential aide further revealed that about 20% of recovered loot would be used to fund the 2017 Budget.
“Let me tell you part of the budget for this year would be financed from our recovering effort. You know we cannot spend this money without going to the National Assembly for permission. In this 2017 budget, let say about 20% of the budget would be financed from the recovered efforts.”
and then