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By Myke Agunwa
Former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Governor of Edo State, Chief John Oyegun, has officially joined the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Edo State.
Oyegun, a former governor of Edo State recently joined forces with former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, former governors of Kaduna, Anambra, Sokoto, Rivers and Cross Rivers, Benue states, Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai, Peter Obi, Aminu Tambuwal, Rotimi Amaechi, Liyel Imoke, Gabriel Suswan respectively and other politicians to form a mega coalition to be driven by the ADC.
Oyegun on Tuesday, recieved his membership card from the Edo state chairman of the ADC, Kennedy Odion, in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
While presenting the card at the party’s secretariat in Benin City, Odion recounted that Oyegun was not new to forming a coalition. He added that the ex-governor by joining the mega coalition, was repeating history to redeem the nation from its economic quagmire and revive the dreams of the founding fathers of the country.
The Edo ADC chairman said Oyegun had put together a coalition in 2015 that succeeded and overturned the election against a sitting president.
“In mathematics, once you understand the formula, the answer is in view. So, he understands how he did it before, so doing it again is not a difficult task.
“So as God may have it, he is not from any other state but from the heartbeat of this nation-Edo State, and we are moving the coalition together.
“He was the chairman of the implementation committee that decided that ADC would be the platform”, Odion said.
On his part, Oyegun said pressure from Nigerians resulted in the formation of the coalition.
He said extensive research was conducted before the party was found to have the interest of Nigerians at heart.
“We talked to a lot of people about, seven others. Up till the very last minute, we made a report and we said ADC. And some said, ‘No, no, no, you must still talk to this, you must still talk to that.’ So, we delayed the decision for another fortnight.
“At the end of our meeting, we still came back. I said, Yes, what do you ask us to do? We’ve done it. We’ve talked to the others, but we have not seen a party as dedicated as the ADC”, Oyegun said.
The former governor blamed the ruling APC for the hunger and starvation in the country, noting that the nation has never been divided as it is under the present administration.
The former Edo Governor blamed the APC-led government for its inability to tackle the rising insecurity in the country.
He dismissed talks that the ADC was planning to disrupt Tinubu’s administration, saying such talks were to diminish the aims and objectives of the coalition, which is to rescue Nigerians.
Oyegun said the party was growing by the day, saying more notable politicians were coming to join the party.
“One can say we are the largest party in this nation. We are growing by the day, we are growing by the week. We are growing by the month. People understand. In all parties, we are not talking; it’s still ADC, but ADC is now a mix of the best of PDP.
“Some of the best of APC, a lot of them are still coming on the way. And all the other parties. The good thing is that you haven’t seen a lot of the faces yet, both professionals, people who never thought of politics, people who just finished handling heights of the economy, but in whatever service, I don’t want to mention the various services.
“The ADC today is a movement, and it is a movement that is driven by the people. You won’t believe how much we had to worry. We have not planned to unveil just yet, but the pressure from Nigerians was just unbearable.
“They keep talking to us about what the platform is. What is the platform? So we sat down one day and said, okay, this very next week, let us unveil whatever it is. We are still going to do a proper launch. But the pressure from Nigeria was so much that we had to hurry up with what we then called unveiling.
“We are not against anybody. We are just for our country, Nigeria. And we want to save this very precious country, Nigeria, specially put together by God himself for the black race, a nation of 230 million people”.