The National Chairman of All Nigeria Peoples Party [ANPP], Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, has affirmed that effective competition, which is what the ongoing merger talks between major opposition parties seeks to engender, in the nation’s political arena will solve many of the problems Nigeria is currently faced with.
He said this while receiving the two Kogi State House of Assembly lawmakers that are coming back to the ANPP after defecting from the party, on whose platform they won their elections, to the PDP and the ACN respectively.
The lawmakers, Hon Michael Foluso Daniel [Mopa-Muro] and Hon Barrister Henry Ojuola [Yagba East], were accompanied to the National Secretariat of the ANPP this afternoon by the ANPP Kogi State Chairman, Comrade Patrick Daudu who presented them to the leadership of the party, led by Dr Onu.
Daudu said ‘‘I am here to present our brothers, our honourable brothers who defected to other parties but have returned to us. Late last year the State Working Committee took some actions to caution and to recall the members who won elections under the ANPP but defected to PDP and ACN. Along the line they wrote to the Committee on their intention to return.’’
‘‘We are happy to receive you. It is a thing of joy to welcome back two of our very important members. They left our party but have decided to come back. These are people who hold very important positions in their government. We welcome you with open hands. We will continue to utilize your experiences and skills in rebuilding our party,’’ Dr Onu told the lawmakers.
‘‘The ANPP is interested in leading Nigeria. We are working with other major opposition parties, to ensure that we enter into a relationship, so that for the first time in the history of Nigeria, major opposition parties will come together to form a strong party, stable and prepared to do what is necessary to ensure that there is change in the country.
‘‘Nigeria needs this merger, Nigeria wants change. This is the only way we will have effective competition, and then ensure that the will of the people will remain supreme. We can see that competition is very good. It engenders zeal; we see it in the performance of the Super Eagles. Our Super Eagles in South Africa they have done us proud, they just reached Semi Finals, and by the grace of God, will reach the Finals. The coach ensured that there was competition between home based players and foreign based players, for positions in the field. If that did not happen there wouldn’t have been success particularly in our encounter with the Elephants of Cote D’ivore.
”You can see competition is productive. It is healthy and productive. It has also happened before in our country, in the telecommunications industry. Before, not everybody could afford phones, but now after many companies entered and there was competition, even market women and students all have telephones.So with competition in the nation’s political arena we will find that many of the problems troubling Nigeria will be solved.’’
While reacting on behalf of the two lawmakers, Hon Barrister Henry Ojuola, assured the party that they are back for good, and will their best to ensure that every member of the ANPP in Kogi State join the efforts for the merger of the opposition.
He said, ‘‘thank you very much for receiveing us back. We are back and we are back fully. We will do our best to ensure that the councilors and others of the ANPP join the merger. ANPP has won in Kogi State before and we can win again. What we need to do now is to go back and re-strategise and re-evangelise in the state, and take our party back to the path of greatness.’’
Signed:
Hon Emma Eneukwu
National Publicity Secretary
ANPP
04-02-13
