The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipre Sylva, has said the Court of Appeal in Abuja has granted the All Progressives Congress (APC) a stay of execution on the judgment delivered by the Federal High Court nullifying the primaries of the party.
Timipre, who disclosed this in a news conference in Yenagoa recently, said the APC would partake fully by contesting in the Saturday governorship poll.
He added that the judgment nullifying the primary was a biased move in the first place.
His words, “I must tell you that the judgment nullifying the primary was clearly a bias one with all due respect to the judiciary.
“So, I have come to address you because we have good news for the people of Bayelsa. The court in Abuja has granted us stay of execution.
“That means, we are fully as a party in the position of contesting this election.
“Because we know that the people of Baylesa are seriously behind us and we will win the election.”
“Everyone in Bayelsa knows that APC has the majority in the state and if there is an election today, it is clear even to blind and the deaf that APC will win.
“The electorate should go en-masse and vote the candidature of the APC, Mr David Lyon.”
The All Progressives Congress (APC) is a political party in Nigeria, formed on 6 February 2013 in anticipation of the 2015 elections. APC candidate Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election by almost 2.6 million votes. Incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat on 31 March. This was the first time in Nigeria’s political history that an opposition political party unseated a governing party in a general election and one in which power transferred peacefully from one political party to another. In addition, the APC won the majority of seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2015 elections, though it fell shy of winning a super-majority to override the ability of the opposition People’s Democratic Party to block legislation.
Formed in February 2013, the party is the result of a merger of Nigeria’s three biggest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the new PDP – a faction of then ruling People’s Democratic Party. The resolution was signed by Tom Ikimi, who represented the ACN; Senator Annie Okonkwo on behalf of the APGA; Ibrahim Shekarau, the Chairman of ANPP’s Merger Committee; and Garba Shehu, the Chairman of CPC’s Merger Committee. Ironically, less than 2 years before the party’s historic victory in the 2015 elections, Messrs. Annie Okonkwo, Tom Ikimi and Ibrahim Shekarau resigned from the party and joined the PDP.
The APC is generally considered to be a centre-left political party that favors controlled market economic policies, and a strong and active role for government regulation. A substantial number of its political leaders are followers of or politicians who subscribe to the social democratic political philosophy of Obafemi Awolowo and the socialist and anti-class views of Aminu Kano. Moreover, the majority of the APC’s base of political support is in southwestern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria, which are dominated by the country’s largest ethnic groups, the Yoruba and the Hausa-Fulani, respectively.
The APC support state’s rights, advancing state police as part of its manifesto. Its social policy is a combination of social nationalism. Despite the parties’ domination by pro-devolution politicians like Atiku Abubakar, Bola Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande, the party’s presidential bearer and the CPC wing is less inclined to federalism.
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