APC not threatened by planned mega party —Oyegun

NATIONAL chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has declared that the party does not feel threatened by talks of the formation of a mega party that will wrest power from the APC.

He advised proponents of the mega party to focus on providing formidable opposition to his party.

The former governor of Edo State also absolved a leader of the party, Senator Bola Tinubu and former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, of the rumoured plot to form a mega party.

The APC national chairman said he had met with some of the leaders of the party, including the leadership of the National Assembly and the former vice president on developments in the party.

Oyegun, who spoke with journalists at his house in Benin City, on Tuesday, challenged any Nigerian to locate one of the challenges facing the country that was ameliorated by the former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

“We don’t feel threatened at all. I don’t know where the name mega party suddenly came from in the lexicon of politics in this country. When two people gather to have a meeting, it is a mega meeting.

“We don’t feel threatened, we will, in fact, encourage a mega party because with the gradual collapse of PDP, we want a party that can make us sit upright and be on our toes in terms of delivery of services to our people.

“We are focused on our mission made difficult by the current economic situation worldwide and compounded by the collapse of the oil market.

“We are reforming this country, reforming it ethically, morally and economically by building a fresh economic base which will no longer depend on an extractive industry which does not involve the people.

“Now, we are pushing agriculture, most Nigerians are in the field of agriculture. We are pushing extractive minerals which virtually all over the country and a lot of Nigerians will be involved in.

“We are pushing power generation and distribution because that will also energise the small and medium scale industry. So we want an economy in which most Nigerians are participants, it is no longer oil which is highly technologically based.

“So, it is a different reality. We are trying to build and establish. It involves sacrifices, hard work but what is necessary today is that we are focused.

“What is real today is that the government of Muhammadu Buhari is passionate about seeing this thing to its logical conclusion.

“This nation must change and the change is so fundamental that there is no question at all that a lot of people are going through temporary hardship, but the situation is such that tomorrow, everybody will be glad that we pursued this line of development, in spite of the problems we are facing currently,” he said.