National Chairman, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Barrister Sylvester Ezeokenwa has vowed to change the party’s negative narrative of a local party to a national party.
He said he intended to achieve the feat by increasing the party’s visibility through partnership with the media which he described as major critical stakeholder in his vision.
Speaking during a courtesy visit of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ezeokenwa maintained that APGA would no longer concentrate in a state, but would take root across the country.
He said, “From assumption, I had a clear vision of what I want to achieve for APGA. As former national legal adviser who worked very closely with the past chairman, I observed certain lapses in the leadership, especially with the media.
“The kind of publicity we had was that of negative publicity. APGA was always on the news for the wrong reasons, including legal leadership issues.
“I coined an accronym – Project DRIVE (Discipline, Rebrand/Reposition, Inclusive leadership, Visibility and Expansion programme – with the media as number one partner.
“The only way APGA can be visible is through the media. Some of the negative impression about APGA is that it’s not just a southeast party, but Anambra owned.
“Yet, APGA has been here for 21years. So it’s no longer a baby. There’s no reason the party will still be concentrated in a state. APGA is not just a party, but a movement of the masses.
“Though it might not have lived up to that expectation over the years, but I’m certain we’ll achieve that and much more under my leadership, as being truly an alliance of all through progressives in Nigeria.
“We want to target the future of the country by taking advantage of young people as partners, no longer the expiring leadership, Inasmuch as we’re not going to do away with the experienced leaders.
“For APGA, it’s a dawn of a new day, particularly now a young man is heading the party with a defined ideology. We’ll assemble true Progressives and tackle issue of marginalisation that fueled the party’s emergence.”
While accessing performance of Governor Chukwuma Soludo since assumption of office, the APGA boss scored him high, especially in the area of human capital development; empowerment of the poor and vulnerability as well as infrastructure.
“Soludo was voted on account of firm promise he made and in years to come, we’ll judge him solely on account of his performance and not on his opinion.
“The several visible indices show that this government is solidly on the right track of tragectory. We’ve been so used to bad leadership that we don’t appreciate when excellent leadership.
“The government’s unprecedented investment in infrastructure, human capital development and conscious effort to empower the poor economically, especially in agriculture, including palm oil and coconut is visible,” he added.
