Says PDP members still occupying top positions in government to go soon
National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole on Wednesday described those leaving the party as mercenaries who joined the party for personal gains, assuring party members all PDP members still holding sensitive positions in the current government will soon be flushed out.
Oshiomhole who spoke while inaugurating the non-NWC members of the party leadership elected at its recently concluded national convention said while he is ready to go to any length to persuade and appeal to genuine people who are aggrieved, he will not intimidated by any coalition against the party.
He said the formation of the Coalition of United Political Parties led by the PDP was a clear admittance by the main opposition and other political parties that they don’t have what it takes to unseat the current government.
He said the party was “aware that even as at today, we still have a lot of PDP people occupying very important positions in federal agencies. We will do everything possible to purge these elements out of the system because we are a party of change.
“They are the conservative right-wing party. We cannot entrust to conservative forces an agenda for change. Government is not in the Villa. Villa is the head of government. Government is in the agencies – what they do, how they do it, the quality of service delivery and the style of that service delivery.
“That is how the ordinary man interfaces with power and if these agencies are in the hands of those who do not believe in our change agenda, then we cannot expect miracles from them.
“And for those who are aggrieved as to how certain things are done, those who question that they do not seem to see the difference because substantially, PDP is still managing these agencies, we have a duty to convince the federal executive that this government has no business with any PDP in sensitive federal agencies and using their old tactics in service delivery. That, I believe is a task that all of us must pursue.
“I believe that we now must work consciously to ensure that in replacing, we replace sinners with believers. Believers are those who are card-carrying members of our party and before we go outside the party family, we must convince ourselves that the persons we are taking, we are taking him because we do not have that particular expertise within the family.
“But even so, he must first take the card and demonstrate loyalty because if you do not believe in a process, you cannot be entrusted with the management of that process. It is not because we are hungry to let our people have jobs, but because I have no confidence that PDP appointees can drive the changes that APC promised.
“APC promises must be kept by APC activists at managerial level, at board level and at political level. That, we must all work to achieve. But while we are working on that, I will ask you to have patience because some people give up too early in life.
“If you work with conviction, and you didn’t get exactly what you expected, that is not a reason to look the other way. I think the most fundamental purpose that brought the APC into being was to save Nigerians from the misrule of the PDP. That has been achieved, but the second challenge is now to take advantage of our being in office to work hard to deliver to Nigerians, first, before ourselves”
Speaking on the R-APC, the former Edo State Governor said “We will do everything possible to assuage those who have genuine grievances who simply want fairness and justice. I believe on your behalf, I can give them all the assurance that there will be justice, there will be fairness.
“However, for the mercenaries, who mistakenly joined the party because of what they can gain personally, not for the good of the country, not for the good of the party; they came in purely for greener pastures and they have found that they have had to work hard to plant the grass, to wet it, nourish it for it to become green and they cannot wait, they want to run, not because we have wronged them but because we just cannot satisfy a mercenary, for those ones, we will not only open the door, we are ready to open even the windows.
“But I am ready to go to any length to persuade and appeal to genuine people who are aggrieved. But like I have said, I am not intimidated; I am not frightened, I am not impaired and I want to urge everyone of you individually and collectively that we cannot be intimidated.
“And if any of us had doubts, from what we saw the other day, it is a collection of old coaches searching frantically for new ideas. The more they search, the more they get old players, not even the best of them, but the worst of old players and I do not think Nigerians can be fooled by a coalition of that.
“If you harness the energy of one million snails and transform it into one snail to run, it cannot catch up with an Antelope. So, when we were told 50 political parties had merged to confront us towards 2019, I was excited because first, that is a clear admission that as things stand today, neither the one we defeated before, the PDP, nor the new one that claim they have formed has what it takes.
“They are now saying to Nigerians that ‘we want to capture power even though we are different, but for the purpose of capturing power, we will unite’, and I do not think Nigerians need any further explanation that enough of this opportunistic politicking”.
Speaking on the various options available to party to curtail money politics, he said “We have a lot of options in our constitution. We have the option of direct primaries. By direct primaries, you remove the power away from delegates to the party members and so if you think that you can compromise the delegates and undermine the wishes of majority of our members, we will call our members to do the voting.
“So, all those options are open. If we ask you to do consensus, you refuse to do consensus and you want to do a one man show, we knowing that one man cannot do election, we will neutralize those abuse of privileges by allowing direct membership participation.
“This leadership cannot be compromised. We will not be intimidated and we will not misuse our privileges to deny any one of our member’s appropriate opportunities to contests and have the opportunity to serve the country”.
Speaking on this weekend’s governorship election in Ekiti, Oshiomhole said “You saw our outing yesterday (Tuesday) in spite of all the crude misuse of limited state power which Gov. Fayose chose to do. But our superior commitment to progress and to overcome challenges explains the huge crowd that you saw.
“I was happy today that he was talking about crowd that was hired. If we can hire crowd, right, that is nice because he had demobilize the movement facility by paying off all the taxi drivers, bus drivers and Okada riders to make sure that there was no local transportation.
“But like I said, you can demobilize all of those. But what you cannot demobilize is the will of the people to do what they believe in. And we saw a stadium that was packed full as if Fayose was not in town.
“I was excited and I feel proud that our members in Ekiti know that for us to overcome and to win the forthcoming election against a man who has had to rely on instrument of violence not only to win but to retain power that they need to be one inch ahead of him. That point was made on Wednesday and I am sure it will be proven by the special grace of God on Saturday.”