The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said, yesterday, that President Muhammadu Buhari sacked heads of 27 federal parastatals on Monday because they were compromised by the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
He said the APC had no apologies for the gale of sack that rocked the agencies.
Oyegun, who disclosed this to State House correspondents after a meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, said the sack was not about APC members filling the positions left by the sacked parastatal chiefs, but about weeding out those sabotaging efforts of the Federal Government to bring development to Nigerians.
According to Oyegun, who led members of the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party on the visit to the President, said ‘internal sabotage’ was pervasive in the affected agencies.
He said: “APC members are not concerned about the positions; we are concerned about the internal sabotage that is going on in a lot of the PDP-filled positions which are critical to our national growth and development.
“It is happening in INEC, it is happening in a lot of other institutions and that is what the concern of the party is, not necessarily taking over.
“We should take over and they should be people who believe in the change agenda. We have no apologies for that at all, that is it.”
Asked how soon the positions would be filled, Oyegun said it was at the President’s discretion.
Speaking on the controversy trailing the 2016 budget, the APC national chairman said it was necessary to make adjustments to reflect modern realities.
“There is absolutely no confusion; this is a serious issue. I want you to please understand the complications that come from adjusting a structure from over 40 ministries to just over 20.
“The necessary adjustments of figures and movements of institutions were very complicated, so it is natural that adjustments have to be made to the process and that is just happening,” he said.
On the mission of the NWC to the presidential villa, Oyegun said they needed to applaud the President on some issues he declined to mention.
“We just came to pay our respect to our President, and praise him on things that are on-going. We raised our concerns on one or two issues and altogether, we had a very pleasant and rewarding meeting.
“They were just internal party matters. I’m sure you are familiar with the political terrain and nothing different,” Oyegun said.
