APC LOST THE SOUTH-SOUTH REGION DUE TO MISMANAGEMENT OF EMOTIONS AND EVENTS . . . FORMER SENATOR AND PARTY CHIEFTAIN

By Mike ALADENIKA.

As the year 2020 was challenging to  Nations, due  to the Pandemic, Nigeria was  not an exception. 

Politically too, the ruling party in  Nigeria, the All Progressives Congress (APC) had it's own fair share of the challenge as the party's crisis that rocked the National level leading to the dissolution of it's leadership and emergence of the interim Management Committee,(IMC) as well as loosing Edo State to the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) thus making the SOUTH-SOUTH a complete PDP Region.

In this interview, SPARKNEWSNAIJA sought the views of a Former Senator who represented Edo North at the National Assembly at the 7th Senate (2011-2015), DR. DOMINGO ALABA JOHN OBENDE. 

EXCERPT  : 

SPARKSNEWSNAIJA : Your party (APC) is currently faced with challenges at all levels, Local, State and National. Leading to loosing some Electoral values. How did you people get to this point?

SEN. OBENDE  :  Every political party that manages people are poised to be faced with multiple challenges especially if that Party controls the central government where leadership and control becomes the main focus of some leaders or individual who thinks they are relevant enough to call the shot. Actually, it is in realisation of the fracture from LGAs to State and National that has prompted the Interim Management Committee (IMC) in its wisdom, to bring about the forthcoming registration exercise in other to bring everybody together so as to have a robust Party that everyone can refer to as his/her own.

SPARKSNEWSNAIJA : What are the visible and practicable efforts been made to put the party back on it's progressive track?

SEN. OBENDE  : The forthcoming registration exercise I believe, if not manipulated, will bring everybody onboard which, to me, I think is a visible and practical steps and efforts taken by the Chairman and the IMC team to bring the party back on a progressive track that APC is known for. I want to sincerely encourage our youths, women and men of value who have the capacity to Lead and be led to take advantage of this window of opportunity to be part owner of this great party as this will greatly unbundle genuine leadership in this our great country 

SPARKSNEWSNAIJA : The SOUTH-SOUTH is most affected, as the party has lost all the states to the opposition. How does the leadership of the party retrieve the glory?

SEN. OBENDE  : Mismanagement of emotions and events lead to our losing the SOUTH SOUTH REGION but I think it is temporary, because APC is still very strong in the region given the fact that strong stakeholders, Ministers, legislators that are capable of reviving the party are in the region.

SPARKSNEWSNAIJA : Edo state, been the only APC controlled state has been lost to the opposition as portrayed in the September 19th 2020 election. 

Aftermath of this was the mass Exodus of some of its members to the opposition Party. Will this not affect the fortune of the party in subsequent Elections even as 2023 presidential election is been eyed?

SEN. OBENDE : Membership of political parties hardly account for up to 5% of the voter populace and for this, it is not true that because we lost Edo state we will not have a good outing in the 2023 Presidential election. 

May I remind you that what brought Victory to the Governor has to do with the fact that our house (APC) was divided and a house divided against itself can not stand hence the loss. I can, however, assure you that after the registration exercise, wounds would have been healed and people would have also come together especially that our Leader and Father Chief John Odigie Oyegun, former first Governor of Edo and first National Chairman of APC haven assumed the leadership of South South will see it as a point of challenge in ensuring that APC in EDO becomes great once again. With all the permutations thereof, I think by the grace of God we shall triumph in the 2023 presidential election.

SPARKSNEWSNAIJA : What is the way forward?

SEN. OBENDE  :  With all that I have reeled out, if properly carried out, will be the way forward to being a stronger and better political party again..

SPARKSNEWSNAIJA  : In your home base, an element is clamoring for your exclusion from the party. Your reaction pls?

SEN. OBENDE  :  I don’t know the group or persons glamouring for my exclusion from the party and for what reason? I know for a fact that no normal person uses his head to walk if he MUST get to his destination, is a political party decision taken in a beer parlour or gossip bush radio? No.

 When a member of a political party is percieved to have offended, such member will be queried and a disciplinary committee set up and if found guilty a recommendation will be made to the appropriate organs of the party from his ward not from a faceless paid character, to be clamoring for  my exclusion from the party.  The last time I checked, in the last quarter of last year after the governorship election, I was the one who paid the rent of the Akoko- Edo Local Government APC party headquarters and that is what I call commitment to the party I trust and I believe.

#SPARKNEWSNAIJA(SNN).

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