Oyegun to Supreme Court: Why are we losing oil-rich states to PDP?

National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, is a sad man, no thanks to the loss of oil-bearing states in the South-South to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) through Supreme Court judgements.
He said on Wednesday in Abuja during a meeting with members of the party in Rivers State: “I still find the judgement on the Rivers State governorship election totally astonishing. There is something fundamentally wrong in the Judiciary.
“We have lost very important resource-rich states to the PDP. No matter how crude oil prices have fallen, it is still the most important revenue earner for the country”.
Odigie-Oyegun spoke when a delegation from Rivers State, led by the governorship candidate, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, visited him in his office.
Dakuku and other APC leaders from the state requested a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari to address the party’s state of affairs and its political fortunes.
Odigie-Oyegun expressed shock at the judgement given by the Supreme Court on the Rivers State case.
The apex court had declared that the PDP candidate, Governor Nyesom Wike, won the April 11, 2015 election, setting aside the Tribunal and Appeal Court judgements which favoured Dakuku.
The National Chairman also declared that the party was in support of any action taken by members to seek legal redress over any injustice.
He said: “The APC National leadership has not neglected party leaders and supporters in Rivers State. The state has always been in the front burner of discussion and decision in the party.
“There is obviously something fundamentally wrong in Rivers State, which needs to be investigated and addressed.
“Your visit has had a sober effect on me. This meeting will kick-start urgent actions to address what went wrong.
“As of today, there are attempts being made by INEC to bar us from elections in Anambra and other states. We must address these issues.
“I will take up your request to facilitate a meeting with the President. We will do that as soon as possible and also make it clear that there are problems, which as a party, we must address.”
Dakuku said: “It will interest you to know that many of our members, supporters and sympathisers are still at a loss to see us work as orphans. We have a herculean task explaining to them that we actually formed government at the centre. It is like we lost the elections.
“To an overwhelming majority of them, the only indication that we might be part of government at the federal level is because our leader and Director-General of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign, which led to a people’s revolution that defeated the former ruling party, and former Governor of the State, Rt. Hon. Chubuike Rotimi Amaechi, is a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“The concerns of our members are reinforced by the fact that more than eight months after APC has formed government at the federal level, notable PDP chieftains and members who spent state resources to work assiduously against us (APC) are still occupying strategic Federal Government positions, dispensing patronages to PDP members to the disadvantage and chagrin of APC members.”
Peterside reported that as a result of the unflinching support party leaders and members gave Buhari and the APC, they have been exposed to undue attacks and hatred and internal discriminations.
He said: “We are called all sorts of names, including being branded as traitors and almost live like outcast in our communities and environments. Even today, we are not out of danger as we are killed, molested, maimed and insulted. The partisanship against us was and is still enormous. INEC was put in place by the leadership of the last administration to perpetually protect its interest.
“We are all witnesses to how some of these actors found it convenient to annul results which were favourable to APC but upheld all those favourable to PDP under the same circumstances in the recently-concluded governorship election in Bayelsa State.
“Meanwhile, politically speaking, Rivers and Bayelsa States are in the same sub-zone of the South-South geopolitical zone.
“What has been put in place is to marginalise us and our members feel nothing is being done to change these structures to, at least, give us a fighting chance in neutrality.”
Also speaking on the Rivers State rerun elections scheduled for March 19, he declared: “The issues of the re-run elections are paramount in our mind. We have 22 seats in a House of 32-man membership. Winning all 22 seats will give us 23 seats and that will enable us produce the Speaker of the House.
“Also, that number is more than the proverbial two-third.
“Furthermore, there are 12 House of Representatives seats and all three senatorial seats to be contested for.
“Presently, the party does not have a two-third majority in any of the chambers of the National Assembly. Now, the opportunity to up the party’s numbers in these chambers has come and we expect that the party will do all that it takes to win all 12 House of Representatives and three Senate seats.
“Even if this may not give it the needed two-thirds but it will make the party to have a robust majority such that it won’t struggle to have its programmes and plans that require parliamentary inputs to be easily implemented to achieve its set goals and core mandate.
“There is no gainsaying that Rivers State occupies a strategic political position in the politics of Nigeria.”
With Dakuku at the meeting were his running mate, Asita Honourable; Rivers State APC Chairman, Chief Davies Ibiamu Ikanya; member of the APC Board of Trustees, Dr. Sam Sam Jaja; Senator Magnus Abe and others.