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Nnamani, Kalu decry Ajimobi, Shittu rift

By Muyiwa Adeyemi (Head Southwest Bureau, Ibadan)
21 January 2018   |   3:48 am
Former Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, and former Abia State Governor, Dr Orji Kalu, yesterday, urged the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to close ranks, if they want to win the 2019 general election.

Orji Uzor Kalu

• Say APC Needs Peace, Unity To Win 2019 Election

Former Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, and former Abia State Governor, Dr Orji Kalu, yesterday, urged the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to close ranks, if they want to win the 2019 general election.

The two leaders specifically condemned the political acrimony between the Oyo State Governor, Abiola Amimobi and the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, fearing it could affect the fortune of the party in the state in 2019.

They made their feelings known at the formal launch of the South West office of the Muhammadu Buhari/Osinbajo (MBO) Dynamic Support Group at Mokola, Ibadan, Oyo State.

Ajimobi and the entire state APC state executive, who were absent at the event, held another programme to sensitise members of the party on the coming local council polls at the APC secretariat in Oke Ado, Ibadan.

Other APC chieftains at the event organised by Shittu, included Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole; Postmaster General of the Federation, Mr. Bisi Adegbuyi; National Coordinator, Muhammadu Buhari Osinbajo Dynamic Support Group, Usman Ibrahim; South West Zonal Coordinator of the organisation, Lateef Olawumi, and Senator Ayo Akinyelure.

Nnamani said: “I would say publicly without any fear or favour that here in the South West, as a centre of excellence in Nigeria and centre of commerce and industry, I expect that their pre-eminent role in politics should anchor on peace and unity.

“There is a need for our party, APC, to have internal decorum and cohesion and people working together. Politics is not a game you play as an individual. You have a role to be part of that team. You are not the team itself. You are part of it.“Since we are here to commission the zonal office, maybe after this we will go further.

But it is important to understand that we cannot achieve much as a group without unity, and peace. It is so vital, not only in politics, but also in our families.

“We are not trying to prove any point by being antagonistic and running one another down. We, as members of one family, must try and eschew every form of bitterness and excessive anger, because nobody does anything right if we do it in anger or bitterness. If you are speaking and you do with anger, you are likely to say things you will regret later.”
 
On his part, Kalu, who expressed regret over the absence of the governor and the party executive, emphasised the need for unity and why the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, and President Buhari must urgently broker peace between the two chieftains.

He said: “For us, we are students of peace and unity. We are students who say the truth. We are students who are not afraid of telling people what we feel is not right. Everybody in this hall will agree with us that there is a break in communication between our governor and the minister. We don’t want that to continue.

“If anybody inside this house today would say it is good for these two elephants to continue quarreling, my senior brother, Senator Ken Nnamani, and I would disagree that they should be quarreling. The minister and the governor should be the best of friends. And we are going to make that happen.”

On the commissioning of the South West campaign office for Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Kalu said: “We stand with Buhari and Osinbajo. We are also waiting for them to tell us they are going to run. Buhari deserves a second term in office, if he so wishes.”

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