APC hits Oyegun, tells aggrieved members to join PDP

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has advised members who are no longer comfortable with the political engagements of the ruling party to freely decamp to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In a statement by the publicity secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu, on Tuesday, June 3, 2019, the APC also tackled its former national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, over recent comments against his successor, Adams Oshiomhole.

Issa-Onilu noted the next three years are very important as the APC under the leadership of Oshiomhole will continue to strengthen compliance with the rules, build support structures for democracy, ensures discipline across board, and deliver good governance for the benefits of all Nigerians.

“We expect members who have different agenda to join their kind in PDP. We will welcome with open arms, those who share our progressive ideals, so that by 2022, we will have a party whose members are truly progressives”, Onilu said.

“I would put the painful outcomes broadly under two reasons. One is indiscipline on the part of some members of our party in most of the states. The second reason is that the party leadership did not do much between 2015 and 2018 to move the party from being an amalgam of different political parties to become a truly blended progressive political party”, Issa-Onilu stated.

'Oyegun lacked discipline'

President Muhammadu Buhari and APC Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun ece-auto-gen

"The immediate-past NWC led by Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as National Chairman lacked the courage required to confront the pockets of political despots who could not operate by the party’s rules," the APC spokesman began

"The resultant effect was widespread indiscipline across party ranks, lack of respect for party supremacy as witnessed in the 8th National Assembly leadership and its overall inability to align the varying interests of the legacy parties that came together to form the APC in 2014.

“Let me agree that the NWC that led the party into the 2015 elections and continued till June 2018 did nothing different from what you would find in PDP. It was a period the party was seen as a mere vehicle to attain political office.

"The system accommodated impunity as certain members appeared to be superior to the party. Their interests were far more important than the collective interests of the APC, even when most times such interests are at variance with the ideals the party stand for.

“You would recall that it was under that leadership that some impudent members of APC called the bluff of the party by imposing themselves on the National Assembly as leaders contrary to the position of the party. Where was the party? Where was the discipline when this happened?

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"It would be difficult to calculate what lack of courage to assert the party supremacy cost APC over that period. The consequences of the inaction of the party were unimaginable. We all saw the consequences on governance as the National assembly practically held our government to ransom.

"The impunity, which President Muhammadu Buhari has rightly described as lack of patriotism, constituted an unfortunate hindrance to the smooth running of government.

“The leadership under Chief Oyegun, with due respect to him, condoned all sorts of acts of indiscipline from certain members. It is not surprising that the current National Working Committee inherited such a huge mess, where the party was struggling to differentiate itself from the delinquent PDP," the APC spokesman added.