Odigie-Oyegun who spoke while receiving a delegation of South East, South South Professionals Forum, at the APC Headquarters in Abuja, on Thursday, said those vilifying him will soon “eat their words.”
In an apparent response to Chief Bisi Akande’s letter, Odigie-Oyegun said, talks about 2019 elections at this point in time is not only hasty but uncalled for.
Akande had in a strongly worded letter alleged among other things, that those jittery about President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption posture connived with rebellious APC legislators to hijack the process of selecting principal officers in the National Assembly.
Specifically, Akande said, “Most Northern elite, the Nigerian oil subsidy barons and other business cartels, who never liked Buhari’s anti-corruption political stance, are quickly backing up the rebellion against APC with strong support.”
Odigie-Oyegun said, “There is nothing they have not said about me, but when you ask what has the man done, one of their reports said the present executive cannot win us elections in 2019, Good lord!”
“You’ve not even finished with 2015, you’re talking about 2019. They also talked about the elites of the North against the people of the south west, am I from the North? Am I the one organising them?
“The one that annoys me is the attempt to rubbish 75 solid years of a character that I’ve put together. They said I take gratification, gratification for what purpose?.
“The only people who can say that are the people who don’t know my background or history; I was just over 30 when I started joining teams that were buying aircrafts from Holland and Soato in the United States, that could not corrupt me.
“I was on the board of the Railways, Nigeria Ports Authority and the rest of them, if all these did not make me corrupt, how can I at 76 take money, money from who to do what?”
The APC national chairman also said he served as chairman of Federal Housing Authority without blemish.
He challenged those casting aspersions on his person as a result of the crisis in the party to go and check the records to see if he awarded a single piece of land to himself or any member of his family.
“What they call satellite village today, myself and Fola Alade went out physically inspecting land for building low cost housing and we finally settled for low cost houses at Badagry, I could have settled for a piece of land, I could have acquired acres and the compensation government was paying would have covered that.” He said.
Odigie-Oyegun explained that out of his love for Nigeria and democracy, resistance to the continuation of military rule, he was in exile for four years during which his economic base was totally obliterated.
He said on his return, his close friend ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was President, but that throughout Obasanjo’s 8 years in power, he never entered Aso Rock to cury favour.
“That is the kind of person I am. When they say I’m taking money from a senator, to do what? I am not a senator, I cannot vote, I cannot by being chairman pronounce him as Senate President or Senate Leader so what is he giving me money for? How many people know me personally,” he said.
The party chairman described the whole affair as annoying, dirty, crude, unbecoming and that it can only come from people who are totally devoid of conscience at any level of humanity that can do things of that nature.
He, however, said he doesn’t lose sleep because he has confidence that God who is so protective of him will ensure that the people who have done this thing will eventually eat their own words.
Earlier, the President of the group, Emeka Ugwu-Oju pledged the forums unalloyed support for the APC chairman.
He said, “We have come to pay our respect and show solidarity to the chairman of the party whose integrity and hard work has stirred this party to victory in the space of one year he assumed the chairmanship position of the party.”
Ugwu-Oju admonished the APC led government not to disregard some of the recommendations made at the 2014 national conference.
-Punch
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