Tony Osauzo and Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin-City
A former governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, at the weekend, in Benin-City, called on newly-elected officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state to work together with their counterparts across the 36 states of the federation to deliver President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 presidential election.
He made the call when the newly elected state chairman of the party for Edo State, Barr. Aselm Ojezua, led other elected officials of the party shortly after the state congress to brief him of the outcome of the congress in his Benin-City resident.
“The last task which I believe that working with you will accomplish is to ensure that the All Progressives Congress continue, working together with other 36 states and FCT to ensure that our president, so far, he is the only one person who has shown interest even though nomination has not closed but I believe that we are all committed to working to ensure that the All Progressives Congress retains the presidency of Nigeria.
“That is our inevitable goal. It is our task as party activists across the 192 wards in Edo State to painstakingly explain in our various dialects to our people in our rural areas to understand who dug the holes some of us are still in and the efforts President Muhammadu Buhari is making to gradually pull them out of those holes to the surface and begin to push them upward to that level in which every Nigerian will have the basis to say I am a proud Nigerian”, Oshiomhole said.
He enjoined the elected executives that it goes beyond bearing the toga of an executive member of the party but that they have the responsibility to educate Nigerians about the meaning of the word progressives for them to be able to make an informed decision about the APC and other parties.
“The first is to project a completely new image of the APC to the Nigeria people and to spend some time in the very near future, to deepen our individual understanding of the enhance of the word, progressive because it is not just a name because the All Progressives Congress, the word progressives was to make a distinction of what we represent and what the other party represent.
“Whereas the PDP are known for share the money our own slogan is APC wok for the people. We must work for the people. We must be pro-people, we must be people driven and we must be people centered political party.
“On the basis of social democracy, there are things that other people can do but we must not do and as we move on, we want to get to a level that the average school child, at least by the time he or she gets to the secondary school level, he can understand why APC is different from PDP by deepening their understanding by what we stand for.
“This is a conscious thing we must do by instilling in the minds of our people that as a party, founded on the principle of social democracy, we must have the dos and the don’t and we must be democratic, know the position, we must manage our differences but at the end of the day, we must have the capacity to speak with one voice, the immediate past governor said.
He reminded them that having been elected in a peaceful manner and without anybody forcing them to sell their belongings before being elected, they should be able to reciprocate same when the need arises.
“The second is that very soon, you will be called upon as will be expected of leaders across the country to actively participate in the process of electing candidates on the platform of our party. We expect you, as you were elected today, without anybody going to sell his father’s house or sell her mother’s shop because he wanted to contest for this office, we expect you by the same spirit, working along with others to ensure that the process of electing delegates or electing candidates on the platform of our party is not based on cash and carry.
“It has to be based on merit, based on competent and based on commitment to delivery services to their various constituents and not based on who bought a car for me, who paid for my mother’s medical bills. These are what people resort to some times when it is time to vote.
“We want to be able to make a different, de-monetize and clean up corruption in that process so that those elected will in return have no excuse not to give their all to their constituents and work together with others to uplift the quality of lives of the average Nigerian”, Oshiomhole counselled.
