Why governors not part of APC inaugural campaign meeting – Oshiomhole

…Victory is ours but we won’t rest, says Buhari The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adamas Oshiomhole, has given reason the whole 22 governors elected on the platform of the party, failed to show up at the inaugural meeting of the APC Presidential Campaign Council. The governors, who are members and State Coordinators of the presidential campaign council, were all absent as President Muhammadu Buhari and his co-chair, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, chaired the inaugural meeting on Thursday at the State House’s Banquet Hall. Responding to questions from State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, on why the governors were not part of the crucial meeting, Oshiomhole said “it because they are governors, they are governing their states.” “Don’t forget that elections are not defined in Abuja, it will take place in the 36 states and I’m assure there are APC members who are campaigning for the House of Assembly, various federal house and senate constituencies, governorship constituencies. So it will not be helpful to bring them to Abuja,” the APC chairman explained. He said that the meeting was about policies and it will be consummated and translated to practice across the 36 states, 774 local governments and awards. The APC chairman said: “The key issue was to go through the programme of activities, calendar of campaigns, various interests group within the country, the business community, the youths, women, people with disabilities and various special interests groups. “The whole country is Mr. President Constituency, so he will have to visit each of the 36 states with appropriate message reminding people always. You know in the country today, given the challenges of survival tend to forget where we are coming from, they just look at where we are. “There is a saying that except you know and remember where you are coming from, you cannot appreciate where you are. Even in the life of a man those who look at those in their front will never thank God enough but when you look at your back and see those behind then you will appreciate that you have made a lot of progress. “So you need to constantly remind Nigerians of what happened in the last 16 years and what has changed over the past three and half years, and what will change even more over the next four years if given the mandate to continue and consolidate. You know that the business of construction is even much more challenging than when you are building a complete new house. “When you are saddled with the responsibility of repositioning an economy that has been so battered even in the face of surplus budgeting the government was borrowing money. “If you look at budget of five, 10 years ago, you will find that almost the entire earnings of the government went into the current expenditure which is why this government with lower revenue is spending more on infrastructure. “We think that we have enough message, the issue is how to communicate it knowing that the level of literacy varies from area to area. And in this business of one man one vote whether you are a professor of economics or a stark illiterate, the vote is the same. “So the challenges in terms of messages is how we make sure that Mr. President’s constituency which is those that are economically and socially deprived, the masses of our people, the one you call talakas that we assist them to recognize where we are coming from and the fact that for once, we have a president that nobody can call him a thief.” In his address, President Buhari said there is no doubt that the ruling party will win the forth coming general elections expressing confidence that “victory is ours.” The president said that the main objective of the meeting was to serve as the forum for collective decision-making to enhance the effectiveness of the campaign effort. Buhari appealed to the members of the presidential campaign council to dedicate and commit themselves to the task at hand. He said: “There is no doubt that victory is with us: it is ours, but that shouldn’t mean we should rest even for a moment. “Even though we are confident of winning, I urge you to work as hard as you can so that we can maximise the scale and extent of our victory. I urge you to rise to the challenge of the great expectations this party and Nigerians have for you and the confidence that I personally have in the ability of all of you to deliver. “Needless to add, your selection was not easy, because in forming this council, the party settled only for the best. You are the cream of the party and I assure you that with unity of purpose and effective harmony and communication, there is no political opponent you cannot overcome”. He said that the agenda for the meeting was to consider and approve the structure and operational modalities of the Presidential Campaign Council – the terms of reference of their various directorates and organogram that will determine how the members will relate with each other and how they would eventually discharge their responsibilities in the campaign. Former governor of Akwa Ibom State and Chairman of the South South Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Godswill Akpabio, accused the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of running a campaign of calumny and false accusations against the APC. Akpabio said that unlike the APC which uses its achievements to campaign, the opposition party has nothing to campaign with hence the resolve to use of vulgar language. He said: “APC is very poised not just to undertake very smooth and scintillating and enjoyable campaign but also very poised to win the next election. “We have very few weeks to the general elections, first the Presidential election and we are quite ready. As you are aware, so far so good, we are running on the basis of our first term performance. “The achievements of Mr. President are all there for people to see and I think the entire country is quite excited quite unlike our colleagues in the PDP who do not seem to have anything except to criticize, attempt to run campaigns of calumny and false accusations against us in the APC. “Today we are meeting to restrategise and conclude, dot the i’s and cross the t’s in the campaign structure so that we can come out with not just a formidable campaigns across the country but also sensitize our people in terms of voter education, we are ready for it”. Mathew Dadiya, Abuja