[Mhiz Rebecca]

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief
John Odigie Oyegun, has boasted that the party is not afraid of the
planned mega party.
According to him, the ruling party had done well and as such those
behind it should be encouraged so as to have a formidable
opposition to the APC.
Oyegun, who made this remark in Edo State on Tuesday, noted that
the the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration was working hard to
end the ongoing economic recession in the country.
He added that the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar were not planning to form
any mega party as widely recently reported in the media.
He said, “Now we are pushing agriculture and most Nigerians are in
the field. We are pushing extractive minerals which, of course, is
virtually all over the country; a lot of Nigerians will be involved in
that enterprise.
“We are pushing power generation and distribution because that will
also energise the small and medium scale industry. So, we want an
economy in which most Nigerians are participants; it is no longer oil
which is highly technologically based.
“So, it is a different reality we are trying to build and establish. It
involves sacrifices and hard work, but what is necessary today is
that we are focused. What is real today is that the government of
Buhari is passionate about seeing the thing to its logical conclusion.
“This nation must change, and the change is so fundamental. There
is no question, at all, that a lot of people are going through
temporary hardship, but the situation is such that tomorrow,
everybody will be glad we pursued this line of development in spite of
the problems we are facing currently,” he said.
“We are waiting for the arrival of Tinubu, so we can also meet with
him and have meaningful discussion because he is a well respected
leader of this party.
“We don’t feel threatened at all, no mega party will survive the APC.
I don’t know where the name mega party suddenly came from in the
lexicon of politics in this country. When two people gather to have a
meeting it is a mega meeting. We don’t feel threatened, we will, in
fact, encourage a mega party, because with the gradual collapse of
PDP, we want a party that can make us sit upright and be on our
toes in terms of delivery of services to our people.
“A party that will make us feel challenged, that will make democracy
real and offer the people a real choice. We are not threatened at all,
we are focused on our mission made difficult by the current
economic situation worldwide, which, of course, is compounded with
the collapse of the oil market.
“We are reforming this country, reforming it ethically, morally and
economically by building a fresh economic base which will no longer
depend on an extractive industry which does not involve the people,”
he added.