The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie Oyegun, said it would be difficult for Nigeria to survive another four years under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) if things continue the way they are in the country.

   Speaking to journalists in Benin City Sunday, the first civilian governor of Edo State also said his party decided to concede victory to the PDP in the governorship election in Ekiti State because APC does not want anything that would make the people react negatively and violently. He added that the party would however challenge issues related to the trampling on the fundamental human rights of the people before, during and after the election.

   He said Nigerians should embrace the APC as the new party with a different agenda to fix Nigeria. “We are presenting our party as new, as different, and we have done the studies as people who truly care. There is no way we can prove it to you because we have not ever rule this country but we can tell you, look at our states. We are not pretending to be angels, politics is not a seminary nor is it the papacy but what is important is what are you doing with the lives of the people, that is what is critical. Are you making their lives better? Do we have power, do we have quality schools, do we have security, do we have jobs? Can we continue in this kind of state? I have told people who are ready to listen that this country cannot survive another four years of the PDP. There is no way it can survive. So we need people who have plans to start taking care of these issues and that is what the APC represents.”

   He said people who had no business in Ekiti State were allowed into the state while those with concrete reasons to be there were denied access and this is part of what he said the party would challenge.

   “Ekiti election to some extent is still a mystery, it still has aspects that we are trying to unfold but the first point is, because we are a party of change, because we are a party that wants to show Nigerians that there is a different way of doing things. In spite of all our reservations, the governor was advised to concede, in spite of our reservations for a lot of reasons.”

 “We don’t think the heavy militarisation of the area was worthwhile. I was there in Ekiti. I had to leave virtually in the dead of night because of intelligence that we received. I had to drive all the way from Ekiti to Lagos and most of our people who got there also left. There was this state of tension, which needed only a little spark to set it on fire and we said look, this is not our style of politics. We have a lot of questions about that election, we are going ahead with something even more detailed than a forensic examination of what happened, we know all was not well.”