‘Nigerians Have Given Themselves A Sustainable Victory’

Prince Hilliard Eta, National Vice Chairman, South-South, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) said the party’s recent victories in the general elections were long coming.

He said Nigeria had experience “retrogression, backwardness and underdevelopment and Nigerians in consensus agreed for regeneration and rejuvenation of values and that time came for Nigerians and they chose the leadership of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.”

He believed God has provided Nigerians with a leadership that will take them out of the pit.

“He is uncommon General; he is the man for the moment. Buhari represents what is good in us. If we give him the support that he requires, in the next cycle of elections, we will only beg him to continue.”

Eta said the victory Nigerians have given unto themselves is not just permanent, but sustainable, in that Buhari is going to give Nigerians a kind of governance they have been yearning for and that can be sustained overtime.

“Unlike the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), we are not saying we are going to be in power for 60 years. We are going to do the very best to give Nigerians the kind of government they desire, a kind of government they see elsewhere and imagine in their own land,” he enthused.

The APC chieftain noted that from the party’s manifesto, it is obvious that it is interested in building strong and independent institutions of government as pillars of development.

Institutions as the security forces, electoral bodies, economic regulators and all manners of institutions that must not be partisan, he stressed, has to be strengthen and made independent of political parties.

He called for the cancellation of the results of the elections in Akwa Ibom State, saying there was no election.

“I have said earlier that there is no way elections in Akwa Ibom State can pass any credibility test, regardless of how generous the test may be. That cannot be called and branded an election.

“Those who are calling for the cancellation of the elections, including international observers, leaders and citizens of the state, traditional institutions, market women and everyone know exactly what they are talking about, because there was no election.

“Any day, any time INEC decides to do a proper election in Akwa Ibom State, APC will win out rightly. APC will win with such a margin that it will remain on record for a while,” he boasted

He said Akwa Ibom people were ready for an APC government and ready to vote for APC, but were not allowed to do so in the last elections.

“Those who subverted, perverted and criminally attempted to destroy the electoral process of our people should be punished.

“The fundamental pillar of democracy is the right to choose and the participation in the process of choosing the kind of leadership that the people need.”

But he quickly added: “We are a law-abiding political party; we will avail ourselves of the opportunity for legal redress and we hope that the judiciary of today would be radically different from the judiciary that was under the leadership of the PDP.

“We expect the leadership and the entire judiciary system to understand that it is no more business as usual and that integrity and uprightness would be the determining factor for the dispensation of justice in Nigeria.

“We hope to take back Akwa Ibom and Rivers states soon.”

And he promised: “I would do the very best that I can to make sure that the people of the South-South are allowed to participate in the democratic process, just like other people from other zones of the country are doing today.

“We have not enjoyed the dividend of this democracy and we need to, because the real dividend of democracy is when you allow the people to choose leadership that will be accountable to them.

“That is the most fundamental dividend of democracy.”