National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie Oyegun, in this interview, reviews some of the efforts being made by the party to reposition Nigeria. He also describes as nonsensical the insinuation that the running mate to the presidential candidate of the APC, Gen.Muhammadu Buhari, Yemi Osinbajo, is a stooge of the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

The APC held a successful convention. How did you make that possible?

There was really no magic wand, that was the APC putting on show before the Nigerian public what the APC is and what we are all about. All what transpired were, with all sincerity, honest of purpose, deploying the right personnel to do the job the way it ought to be done. We appointed a team that was up to the task, very honest and transparent. The team was headed by Dr Fayemi, a former governor of Ekiti State. There was this noise about consensus candidate but I told them that consensus is good if it comes from those directly involved.

I made it clear to them that I was not going to be party to twisting any body out of the race. What all the aspirants wanted was a level- playing field and transparency that they too could see. And we gave them that and that proved that Nigerians can be gracious losers. Nigerians can accept defeat when they see that the process was not skewed against them; that is the APC, that is what we are offering the Nigerian people.

People expected the APC to pick one of the South South governors as running mate to Buhari, but you went for someone who is considered relatively unknown. Why?

That is the APC for you, expect the unexpected. We had qualified people. As a matter of fact, the candidate had a list of ten from all over the country and the attributes that we were looking at were quite clear, given the nature of the aspirant that he has become to the nation a symbol of rectitude. We were also looking for some body of equal rectitude, totally none controversial, a dye in the wood professional, a very organized person.

It was a difficult choice because it took us a few days, it was a very difficult choice because every one of them in the field of selection was highly qualified. At the end, we thought this man best balanced the ticket and today we are presenting to the nation, the kind of persons that we think Nigerians can become; people who have succeeded through being transparent, hard working and dedicated. Everything we did we want to let the people know what to expect when they give us the mandate in February.

But many people see Osinbajo as a stooge of Asiwaju Tinubu?

It is only the people in the PDP that see it that way because they don’t know what is called integrity. I don’t know if anybody can be anybody’s stooge particularly a professional like that. And not just a professional he is also high in the hierarchy of the Christian world. He may get on with Tinubu, I get on very well with Tinubu, he is also close with Tinubu because he worked with him as a Commissioner years ago but since then he has devoted his time to his professional duties. So it does not matter if he is close to Tinubu or not. He is a highly qualified professional, he has made himself a success in that profession; so he is not looking for sustenance, people like that can never be stooges of any body.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW ON SUNDAY VANGUARD