The Senator representing Rivers South East at the National Assembly, Magnus Abe, has finally reacted to the coalition formed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and over 30 other parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.
The lawmaker was confident that although the parties were trying to copy the All Progressives Congress, APC, they cannot achieve the success recorded by the ruling party.
“What is happening now is a very poor imitation of what we did to the PDP during the last elections,” the former PDP member said during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.
He added, “It’s just people trying to imitate what has happened before without knowing that the circumstances and environment have changed dramatically, and what worked at that time is not necessarily what will work now.”
Magnus said that unlike the PDP, the APC was able to penetrate the then ruling PDP and win aggrieved strong members of the party into its fold.
The lawmaker said that the ruling party cracked the PDP by pulling out about six governors of states which the opposition party would have leveraged to retain power in the 2015 elections.
He said, “When we left (the PDP), we walked out of the convention with governors, with senators, and we shook the party from its very foundation; nothing like that has happened here.
“In this new movement that you are seeing here, I didn’t see any seating governor seated in that hall. You have 40 political parties – some of these parties don’t even have a councillor, some don’t even have offices and what is the impact of that?” the lawmaker questioned.
He insisted that the coalition would have no effect on the APC, although the party may have some challenges in Kwara if the Senate President and the governor should leave.
Senator Abe was optimistic that the APC leadership under the watch of Adams Oshiomhole would do its best to address the concerns of aggrieved party members.
“What I would say is that clearly in the All Progressives Congress, mistakes have been made within the party … but the emergence of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has given hope that some of these issues can and will be addressed,” he said.
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