From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Action Alliance (AA) has declared that the party would not zone presidency to any part of the country in order for the best candidate that can pilot the affairs of Nigeria competently and effectively to emerge.
The National Chairman of the party, Adekunle Rufai Omoaje, made the disclosure on Thursday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, when he addressed delegates at the national convention of the party.
He was optimistic that AA would win at least 10 states during the 2023 general elections, adding that there was relative peace in the party.
According to him, the presidential candidate of the party can come from any part of Nigeria, saying integrity, excellence and capacity to lead are three qualities that the candidate must possess before he or she would be allowed to contest the presidential on the platform of AA.
Omoaje, whose position as the national chairman of the party was reaffirmed by delegates at the convention, said: “We believe in the best and we will present the best person as our candidate in the presidential election. It doesn’t matter where the candidate come from as long as he is qualified and posses the attributes of a good leader, our party we present him. We are not interested in where anybody comes from.
“I want to assure Nigerians that our party will present a formidable candidate come 2023. We are ready to bring about positive change and solutions to the problems confronting Nigerians.”
Omoaje, who was hopeful that President Muhammadu Buhari would sign the Electoral Bill into law in the interest of democracy, explained that delegates that attended the national convention were drawn from the 36 states of the federation and Abuja.
The national chairman of AA, however, condemned in strong terms the manner of arrest by the police of the party’s 2019 governorship candidate in Imo State, Uche Nwosu, in the church on Sunday.
Though he noted that Nwosu had defected from the party to All Progressives Congress (APC), he insisted that “The governorship candidate of our party in 2019, it was very surprising the way Nigeria Police Force arrested him in the church. Every reasonable human being will condemn that act.
“He is a figure. He cannot hide anywhere in this country or in any other country of the world. If the police need his attention, I think the best belt is to invite him. I am very sure that if he was invited, he would have honoured the invitation. I condemn it and the Action Alliance condemns it in totality, the way he was arrested. We don’t believe that he was just arrested, they just deliberately planned to victimise him.”