Atiku’s exit will not lead to ‘massive defection’, Says Oyegun

By Umar Muhammad Puma

The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Odigie Oyegun has dismissed fears in some qourters that the exit of former vice President Atiku Abubakar will lead to massive defection from the party.
Atiku has last week announce his defection from the ruling All Progressives Congress and subsequently joined the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
Oyegun made the assertion while speaking during his investiture as the national life grand patron of the Association of former chairmen, councilors and ward leaders in Nigeria, at the Party’s National Secretariat in Abuja.
Oyegun said: “Let nobody fears that the defection of the former vice president is going to lead to any deluge. If anybody wants to defect, the day you are defecting is the day you bring out your heavy guns, not later, like the papers are speculating. When you stand and they look at your right and left, they say ‘ah this man has done something great’.
“So don’t ever be afraid that there is going to be any massive defection. As a matter of fact, the contrary is the case. The APC is growing in strength on a daily basis,” Oyegun said.
Present at the investiture were the Party’s Deputy National Chairman (North), Sen. Lawal Shu’aibu; Deputy National Chairman (South), Engr. Segun Oni and National Auditor, Chief George Moghalu.
He charged the group not to be deceived by the ‘screaming’ and opposition’s rhetorics.
“Anybody who is anybody is virtually with the APC today. The reality is, outside the APC, there is no other party that is truly settled, not even the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is. They are still fighting about how to get a chairman and the rest of it. Today, they say money has come to buy the chairmanship position. So is it something you should take pride in? It is just that the remnants of the PDP have found their voice, so they are screaming very loud; and we think that the whole country is upside down. It is not. The country is making steady progress, and your party is growing on a daily basis.”
The APC National Chairman, while thanking the association for the investiture, said the group’s association with the APC has come at the right time, as the party has begun preparations for the 2019 elections.
He urged the group to position themselves as key drivers of positive change in the country and shun unwholesome practices and conducts which have bedeviled many similar groups.
Speaking during the investiture, the Association’s National Coordinator, Hon. Mike Omohimua described the APC National Chairman as a man of high intellect and political pedigree who used his political doggedness and experience to rescue Nigeria from collapse in the hands of the immediate-past PDP administration.