Governor-elect of Anambra State, Mr Charles Soludo, has pledged that the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) will work very hard to drive the party’s popularity and mainstream it in national politics.
Soludo spoke in a chat with Arise TV on Wednesday less than 24 hours after being declared winner of the Saturday election.
He had polled 112,229 votes on the platform of APGA to defeat his two major rivals, Mr Valentine Ozigbo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who got 53,807 votes, and Andy Uba of the All Progressives Congress, APC, who secured 43,285 votes.
However, APGA, having ruled Anambra for 15 consecutive years, has not been able to establish a foothold in other parts of the country.
Speaking on this, Soludo said the party should not be categorised as a regional party, adding that it will soon spread across the country.
He said APGA will “mainstream our neo-progressivism” and get Nigerians to buy into the ideas of the party and “begin to flood into the party”.
He said APGA will leverage on its bases in some parts of the country to build a “systematic approach to getting the rest of the country.
“APGA happens to be the first progressive party that was registered in Nigeria. And its name says it all, All Progressives Grand Alliance. It starts in 2002 before others started adding progressives to their names.
“The first election that it won happened to be in the south-east. Just Like Action Congress (AC), the first election that they won happened to be in the south-west, and (some people) began to see it as Yoruba party — forgetting that its first presidential candidate was Atiku Abubakar,” the governor-elect said.
“Ditto for APGA, the first election it won was in Anambra and people began to have that toga. We are going to work very hard to mainstream our neo-progressivism and we’re the ones with the neo-progressive ideas, mandate, agenda.
“The moment Nigerians begin to see with clarity the uniqueness of APGA and why the APGA agenda, people from all walks are going to begin to flood into the party.
“We’ve won elections sporadically in some parts of the country but we’re now going to build on that to really have a systematic approach to getting the rest of the country.”
