An All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Ayiri Emami, has stated that the party will take over the South-South in the 2027 general elections, as it is gaining popularity in the zone.

Mr Emami, who stated this while speaking with journalists on Tuesday in Abuja, said that the party would have a particularly better outing in Delta in 2027 compared with 2023, when it lost the state to the rival Labour Party.

According to him, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party in Delta are comprised of aggrieved politicians who lack the necessary political clout to win elections.

“I tried to check those in Labour Party and they are either APC or PDP. The party doesn’t have structure.

“It is made up of aggrieved people from APC and PDP, and anywhere, they are just aggrieved; they don’t know why they’re going to Labour Party,” he said.

Mr Emami said that all political stakeholders in Delta were now in one boat, that is, APC, adding that consultation was still ongoing among leaders to bring on board all aggrieved members.

“I know that, at least, 80 per cent of our members are together. I cannot tell you that the remaining 20 per cent are not important. So we must do everything to bring everyone on board.

“The 20 or 30 per cent that is left is still important, because in politics, everybody is important. Nobody has to be left behind,” he stated.

He noted that APC’s chances in Delta and the South-South generally were currently looking brighter compared with the situation ahead of the 2023 general elections.

“To me, I believe that if the national is APC, the state, one day, will be APC, and Delta is now APC. So I think we are going to do better in 2027, both in the governorship and presidential elections,” he said.

Mr Emami said that he remained a loyal supporter of President Bola Tinubu and the APC.

“You know I’m a true supporter of President Tinubu. I don’t just support because of money. I support because of my conviction that Tinubu will turn things around,” he said.

The APC chieftain expressed happiness that those who were criticising him and a few others in Delta for supporting Tinubu ahead of the 2023 presidential election were now card-carrying members of the party in the state.

“We were almost crucified in the Niger Delta region when we were supporting Tinubu, but we thank God.

“The most important thing in life is when you are convinced and you have a belief, and you follow that belief,” he said, adding that he had always believed in his political ideology and in Tinubu.

“I believe in his person and in his virtue because, as a young man, I had sat with him, I had listened to him and I had seen him performing.

“So I have a lot of conviction that if he became president, we could turn things around,” he said. 

Mr Emami, however, said it was regrettable that some politicians in the country lacked political ideology.

He said it was only those with shady deals and businesses in the Niger Delta region who were opposed to Tinubu’s presidency ahead of his election in 2023.

Mr Emami said such people were only afraid that their shady deals would collapse under Mr Tinubu’s administration because he knew too much about the area.

“I have had several conversations with a lot of people from my region; they will tell you they prefer a president from other regions because they don’t know more about our area.

“Maybe because of the shaddy deals they will be doing around, but I don’t think that there’s any story we want to tell Tinubu about our region that he won’t understand.

“So I now found out that those opposed to him actually don’t have one serious reason, and when you ask them, they will say let us be with northerners that don’t know much about our area,” he said.

Mr Emami noted that since Mr Tinubu assumed office as president, many loopholes in the petroleum sector in the region had been blocked.

He further noted that those with shady deals and businesses in the region had been complaining, not because Nigeria was not moving forward, but because their shady practices had been blocked.

The APC chieftain said that with the projects underway in the zone, people had now been convinced that Mr Tinubu had the region’s interest at heart.

(NAN)