APC Would Replace Faleke If Need Arises – Chief Odigie-Oyegun
Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), says James Faleke will be replaced as deputy governor-elect if the need arises.
Odigie-Oyegun said this in Abuja in an interaction with the press.
Faleke, who was running mate to late Abubakar Audu in the Nov. 21 gubernatorial elections in Kogi, rejected the deputy governorship candidature after the party replaced Audu with Alhaji Yayaha Bello, who was runner-up in the party’s primaries.
Faleke demanded that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should declare him governor-elect, and chose Audu’s son, Mohammed, as his running mate. He threatened to court of INEC failed to do so, and had since gone to court.
Reacting to Falake’s statement saying that he will not to be available for swearing-in on Jan. 27, 2016, the APC Chairman said, as a political party, it will simply understand the frustration that emanated from the death of Abubakar Audu.
He added that it is normal for the party to accommodate the immediate reactions coming from the people involved.
Odigie-Oyegun said wielding the big stick in a situation like this might not be appropriate, hoping that everybody will simmer down as time pass by, but there will be a timeline to it, enough will be enough at a certain time.
According to the chairman, issues in the state have been resolved in favour of the APC even as the entire polity had to be original to finding solutions to problems which were not detailed in the Constitution.
The APC Chairman said as at now, the party is gladden with the results that it has gotten and that he was very optimistic that that the party would be upheld virtually in every tribunal whatsoever, because it has adopted simple commonsense solution, legally defendable.
He said that the party was not disturbed by the cases in court on the Kogi situation, stating that it was still evolving.
Odigie-Oyegun said that the party’s stance on the controversial Bill for an Act to Prohibit Frivolous Petitions and Other Matters known as the anti-social media bill was known.
He said that the social media space needed clean up as the use of outright abuses and insults instead of constructive criticisms was wrong.
On subsidy, the APC Chairman said If it has to go, the Federal Government must have to construct ways in which the effect of the hardships that may come on the ordinary Nigerian would be subdued.” Anyway, eventually, subsidy will have to go but we have not reached that stage yet.” He added.
The chairman told the newsmen that minimum wage was a delicate issue because there were a lot of forces at work.
Odigie-Oyegun said all governments are borrowing to pay salaries and that cannot be sustained. What the solution is on the longer term, the machinery of governance is still working on. He said.
On Bayelsa election outcome, the Chairman said that the party was not satisfied with INEC’s pronouncement but said since INEC had made it, the options available for the party was to either accept it or go to court.
He concluded that If APC wins as expected, the reactions that the party takes will differ.
