The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, yesterday stated that the party can be fired if it did not meet the aspirations of 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.
He, however, reaffirmed that the APC-led Federal Government would not disappoint Nigerians. Oyegun stated this yesterday at the national secretariat of the party when a book titled: “APC: The making of a change agents, written by the Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution, Mr. Okoi Obono-Obla, was presented to him.
According to him, Nigerians applied the right to fire a government for the first time when they voted out the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He defined democracy as hiring and firing of political office holders by those that elected them. He said: “What is democracy? The ability to hire and fire.
This is the first time Nigerians had the ability of firing and it has become internalised in our political culture. We too now know that we can be fired and that is the democracy.”
Speaking on the book, the APC national chairman described the book as an insider account of the merger process that culminated in the formation of the APC, as he encouraged other stakeholders who “participated intimately” in the formation of the APC to document their record of events for posterity
He hailed the contributions and sacrifices of chairmen of the legacy parties that merged to form the APC; former vice president, Atiku Abubakar; former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; new PDP entrants, amongst other stakeholders, in the formation of the APC. 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. The author of the book, Okoi Obono-Obla recalled several past attempts at party alliances until the successful merger of the APC, stating that the legacy parties merged to halt the PDP’s misrule, marred by insecurity, unemployment and bad governance
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