By Emmanuel Mogbede
Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Tuesday reaffirmed that the federal government would not disappoint Nigerians.
He said that the party was conscious that Nigerians reserved the power to vote it out in 2019 if it failed to meet their expectations.
The chairman stated this when Mr Okoi Obono-Obla, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Prosecutions, presented his book to him at the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja.
The book titled “All Progressives Congress: The Making of a Change Agent’’ was reviewed by the Minister of Mines and Solid Minerals, Dr Kayode Fayemi, and presented to the public in April.
Odigie-Oyegun commended the president’s aide for writing the book, and said that it was a great achievement that would help to enrich the country`s political history.
“You were there and you saw it happen, but this is not to say you are the custodian of all the facts, because there were other players,’’ he told the aide.
He encouraged all those who participated in the merger process that gave birth to the APC to document their findings from their perspectives for posterity and for the future generation.
“I want to take this opportunity to call on all those who participated in the merger process to please take the pain and document their experiences for posterity,’’ he said.
Odigie-Oyegun described the merger as “very significant event’’ that entrenched true democracy in the country.
He defined democracy as “the power to hire and fire’’ and said that such attribute was the beauty of democracy.
According to him, the merger made it possible for Nigerians to have the ability for the first time to “fire’’ an incumbent government.
This, the chairman said, had become internalised in the country`s political history.
He added that the APC would ensure that it lived up to the expectation of Nigerians and avoid the mistakes of its predecessor.
“We know now that we can be fired by Nigerians and that is the beauty of democracy, ‘’ he said.
Earlier, Obono-Obla had said that the book was a documentation of the merger history of political parties in the country, stressing that it was his personal experience “as an insider’’. (NAN)
