Fashola, Oshiomhole, Wamakko shun APC Govs’ Forum in Owerri

By Chidi Nkwopara

OWERRI — The meeting of All Progressives Congress, APC, Governors' Forum kicked off, yesterday, in Owerri, Imo State capital, without their counterparts from Lagos, Edo and Sokoto states -Raji Fashola, Adams Oshiomhole and Aliyu Wamakko -in attendance.

Although no reasons were advanced for the conspicuous absence of the three governors, the third progressive governance lecture series, however, went on as planned.
Addressing the Forum, chairman of the event and former  Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, challenged the Federal Government to tackle  the current health and security challenges facing the citizenry at present.

While expressing regret that the Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, had become "the worst monster confronting the African continent,' Alhaji Abubakar also reasoned that the current health challenge required adequate investment in the health sector to spare the people from possible extermination.
Taking a hard look at the theme of the lecture, 'Dealing with the challenges of building a physically healthy nation through preventive, protective and innovative medicare,' Alhaji Abubakar decried the upsurge of  "maternal and infant mortality in the country.

He promised Nigerians that if the citizenry gave their approval in 2015 through the ballot box, "an APC controlled Federal Government would take necessary steps to transform the country for a better tomorrow."

Speaking also, APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, advised Nigerians to distance themselves from politicians propagating and promoting campaigns of calumny and character assassinations.
While noting that those who engage in blackmail did so "to achieve parochial and sectional ambitions," Oyegun roundly dismissed those he called "mischief   makers," who linked the APC with the discredited Boko Haram sect.

Oyegun, who said APC  was neither a Yoruba, Hausa nor Igbo party, however, described the party as "a national vehicle composed of progressive minds who have the capacity to transform the country" for a better tomorrow.

"I want to assure you all that the APC is on the path of greatness and the 15 years of PDP misrule in the country will come to an end by February 2015 and this is a challenge to all of us," Oyegun told the APC governors.
The APC National Chairman also disclosed that if Nigerians gave the party the nod, they will tackle the nagging problem of corruption and insurgency, as well rescue the citizenry from "administrative ineptitude of the PDP at the centre."

In his own address, Chairman of APC's Governors' Forum, Governor Rochas Okorocha, raised the alarm that the nation's health care sector had sadly come to a   standstill.

He pointed out that the three health-related
Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, of reduction in infant and maternal mortality rates, HIV, Malaria and tuberculosis were yet to be met.
 
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