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The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has asked the Igbos to join the ruling party if they want an easy route to an Igbo Presidency.
Odigie-Oyegun said this during a parley with former aspirants and the inauguration of a 48-member campaign council for the APC candidate for the November 28, 2017 Anambra State governorship election, in Abuja, on Thursday.
He said: “We must change the narrative in the South-East and we must start with Anambra because the APC represents the most viable route for any South-East person to the presidency of this country.”
Odigie-Oyegun also used the occasion to welcome the former Deputy National Chairman to the Modu Sherrif -led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, into the APC.
The party chairman at another event stated that the APC needs to win the Anambra election to end the cry of marginalisation by the South East. He described Anmabra as the “gateway to the South-East”
Odigie-Oyegun said this during a reconciliation meeting organised at the instance of the party leadership for aspirants in the recently concluded APC primaries for Anambra State.
The reconciliation meeting was held at the party’s National Secretariat, in Abuja, on Thursday.
Speaking at the reconciliation meeting, Odigie-Oyegun said: “It is important that we do everything we can, fair and square, to bring Anambra State into the fold of the progressives for a lot of reasons.
“Until we manage to bring a few states into the mainstream of progressives’ politics, we may not see the end of this continued cry of marginalisation.
“It is important that we work and work very hard to win Anambra being a critical state in the South-East. It is not going to be a small political struggle. We must work hard with unity of purpose to break through to the South-East in a major way to win Anambra.
“We are in politics and we recognise that each and every one of those who aspired for the office of the governor of Anambra State has a constituency. Everyone has something very significant to contribute if we are to have hope of winning the governor’s seat in Anambra from an incumbent.”
He added, “It is very important, essential and vital that we manage to hammer together not just a patch work of peace or make-believe kind of camaraderie but a very serious unity of purpose between all those who aspired to that office to act as a serious guarantee that we are indeed also serious in winning the Anambra governorship seat.”