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Our
leaders never met Obasanjo, says APGA
By Chuks Ehirim
Senior Correspondent, Abuja
The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA)
has denied a statement credited to Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, Special Assistant to the
President on Media, that the party chairman and Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu
Ojukwu, APGA’s presidential candidate in the 2003 general election, had
meetings with President Olusegun Obasanjo where issues bordering on the
Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) were
discussed.
A statement by Ikem Eseni, Special
Adviser to APGA chairman on Media, said the government lied, adding that the
government has resorted to using blackmail in its dealings with the party.
“We wish to state unequivocally
that the presidency lied outrightly on this matter. It is very glaring to many
Nigerians and indeed the world that President Obasanjo’s government is
fast acquiring a reputation for cheap blackmail,” said he.
Eseni added that, at the instance of
President Obasanjo, the APGA national chairman met with him on four different
occasions immediately after the 2003 controversial elections. He said the
issues discussed at the meetings were on how to resolve the problems posed by
the electoral fraud committed against APGA by the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP).
He said that issues of MASSOB never
featured during those meetings that
took place well before Obasanjo’s second term was inaugurated.
“We wish to reiterate that at no
time in the course of the various meetings did the issue of MASSOB feature and
we challenge the presidency to make public any such facts,” said
Eseni. And in a related
development, the APGA chairman, has dismissed President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s economic reforms as an exercise in futility.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with
Daily Independent, Okorie said that no economic reform programme can succeed in
contemporary Nigeria except the country first carries out a political reform.
“What I will just say is that there is no economic
reforms that will ever see the light of the day, no matter the experts who
designed it in this country, without first of all, embarking on political
reforms,” he said.
Okorie said he is full of pity for Mrs.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister, because at the end of the day, all her
efforts would come to nothing.
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