APC will defeat opposition coalition in 2019 ― Kolawole

MR Kolawole Akinlayo, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a House of Representatives aspirant, has said the party has all it needed to return to power in 2019 elections.

In a statement issued on Thursday, he said the recent defections of some notable party members to opposition parties were not enough rock on the boat of the APC in the next elections.

He added that all the party leaders needed to do was to work hard and present people of proven integrity to the electorate in the 2019 general election.

“The defections will not affect our party, depending on how our party leadership addresses the issue. It was like a coalition of forces by some politicians across the country with the intention to wrest power from President Muhammadu Buhari, but such won’t affect the party in the 2019 general elections.

“Though, one will be worried seeing eminent people like the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, former Kano State governor, Senator Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso, Governors Aminu Tambuwal, Samuel Ortom and Abdulfatah Ahmed of Sokoto, Benue and Kwara states, respectively, going to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but re-electing President Buhari for another term rests primarily on Nigerians to decide and not the sole prerogative of the Senate President and other politicians who are now boasting as if Nigeria belongs to them.

“I want to applaud the national leadership of the party, led by Adams Oshiomhole, for wooing former Akwa Ibom State governor, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to APC. Akpabio’s defection to APC had neutralised whatever effects Saraki and others’ defections must have caused the ruling party, taking cognisance the respect the former minority leader commands in Nigeria’s politics.

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“The party leaders, at both state and national levels, are already repositioning the party, the people of means are defecting to APC. They said APC was not popular in Edo, Ondo and Ekiti states, but the party won elections in those states.

“Now, they are bragging that President Buhari won’t be re-elected. We will all be alive when our party will win the 2019 elections with a landslide victory.

“Let PDP and defectors understand that President Buhari’s re-election became a done deal the moment elections in Ondo, Ekiti and Edo states were won,” he said.

Kolawole said the people of Ekiti North Federal Constituency II were behind his ambition, saying the people were disenchanted with the present representative, who he said was too old to give them any meaningful representation.

“Let me, first of all, say that the chances of APC are very high in that constituency, because the 79-year-old man, Honourable Thaddeus Aina, who is representing the constituency now has not given effective representation. He has not called a meeting once to tell his people what he has done.

“Apart from this, he had not raised any motion or sponsors any bill or even contributes to discussions on the floor of the National Assembly since 2015 when he was elected,” he said.