I’m not leaving APC — Omo-Agege

Former Deputy President of the Senate and candidate of the APC in the 2023 governorship election in Delta State, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has debunked the story by a US-based newspaper that he is planning to leave the party, describing it as a failed hatchet job by an on-the-shelf journalist available for hire.

In a press release issued by Sunny Areh, his media adviser, Senator Omo-Agege said the story is a product of allegation journalism with no iota of truth.

According to him, “Our attention has been drawn to the January 12, 2025 publication of The Will, an online magazine published in the United States of America by a Nigerian also based in the US.

“In the weird publication, it was alleged that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Deputy President of the Senate in the 9th Session, is scheming to abandon the All Progressives Congress (APC) to team up with Mallam Nasir el-Rufai to float a phantom new political party. The story is not only shocking but idiotic.

“Having led the APC to its best ever performance in the 2023 general elections in Delta State where the party won two of the three senatorial seats and Senator Ovie Omo-Agege was narrowly cheated from coasting to victory in the governorship election, associating his name with the political group the former Kaduna State governor is said to be working on is a clear case of fable without any basis whatsoever.

“Even though we are shocked, we are not entirely surprised. The publisher has a rich history of publishing false and inaccurate stories. In August 2024, Ogannah invented a story claiming that Rt. Hon. Joan Onyemaechi, a former member of the House of Representatives who had been kidnapped by hoodlums had been killed. To the glory of God, Hon. Onyemaechi came out of the ordeal alive, hale and hearty. Ogannah never apologised for the fable he engaged in while he was thousands of kilometres away from the area where the crime was committed and security agencies worked assiduously to effect her release.

“Ogannah’s story is the product of a hatchet job orchestrated by political forces whose only path to relevance is to create a wedge between Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“In its fake and concocted story, The Will never referred to any time when Senator Omo-Agege could have met with his illusory political group. And while he claimed to have sought and could not get a response from two Presidential spokespersons – Mr Sunday Dare and Barr. Daniel Bwala – he never reached out to Senator Omo-Agege.

“Austyn Ogannah has made himself a willing tool in a game designed to derail the momentum APC under the leadership of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege in Delta State has built from its sterling performance in the 2023 general elections to effectively take over the state in 2027. It is a game where the perpetrators are ready and already deploying blackmail and other subterfuge to sabotage the APC.

“Let it be known that as the leader of APC in Delta State and having taken it through a record showing in the 2023 general elections, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege remains irrevocably committed, steadfast and primed to the task of completing the job of rescuing the state from the serial failed administrations in 2027.

Together with other progressive forces, he will steer the state to true prosperity and take her away from the trajectory of missed opportunities, failed policies and incorporated corruption to the path of development as a frontline oil-producing state in the Niger Delta.”

He urged the APC faithful to disregard the hatchet job and remain firm in their loyalty to the party.

“Already, our dear President’s reform agenda for re-tooling Nigeria’s economy to a productive one is bearing fruits and the people are testifying to the renewed hope of all facets of the population.

“President Tinubu will not be deterred or distracted by reactionary forces determined to keep the people in perpetual penury,” he noted.