Dr Fredrick Faseun, the interim National Chairman of the revived Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), said on Wednesday that the party would spring “surprises’’ in the 2015 elections.
“The UPN will be the party to beat come, 2015 elections if it is registered. It is coming with the ideology of its late founder which is to make man the centre of governance.
“Nigerians have suffered untold hardships and must be taken back to the days when life was better and when people were employed after leaving school,” he told newsmen in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Faseun, founder of Odu’a People’s Congress (OPC) and other loyalists of the late UPN leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had on March 8 announced plans to revive the party.
Awolowo had contested presidential poll on the platform of the party both in 1979 and 1983 in the second republic and was later banned following the
1983 military putsch.
The party controlled South-West states — Ondo, Ogun, Lagos, old Oyo, defunct Bendel and Kwara.
Faseun, who described UPN as the true people’s party, expressed the hope that it would help to fill the current vacuum in the nation’s political landscape.
“Nigeria has had enough of lies from some of its leaders, hence the need for a true people’s party.
“The selfishness among our politicians is the bane of governance in Nigeria.
“There is no doubt that the UPN will take the nation to where it should be,” he said.
Faseun said that the doors of the party was open to true progressives and urged like minds to join the fold.
On the registration of the party, the interim chairman said that plans had been concluded to register the party with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“We have gone far in our effort to register with INEC and we have also set up committees to facilitate this.’’(NAN)