By Emma Ogbuehi
Basking on the euphoria of the return of former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode to the All Progressives Congress (APC), a chieftain of the party and chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum, Musa Sarkin Arda, has assured that former President, Goodluck Jonathan, is the next target to be brought into the ruling party.
Fani-Kayode, a sworn critic of President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC, made a dramatic return to the party, he had severally dismissed as lacking in the vision to reposition Nigeria. This would be the second time he would be coming back to the party.
Arda who made the disclosure in the talk show morning programme of Arise Television, stated that much work has been done to bring the former president into the fold, making it almost a done deal.
Efforts to woo Jonathan, he added, are line with strategies of the party to attract those that would add value to APC especially in the run-up to the 2023 general elections. To this end, he stressed that APC would not apologise to the former president on the criticisms leveled against him during the 2015 presidential election when he was seeking for re-election, saying that they were all part of the mix in power contestation. “Jonathan attacked our candidate then, Muhammadu Buhari and we attacked him back. So, there is nothing to apologise about that. It was part of the game”, he said.
The lawmaker absolved the Buhari administration of introducing money politics into the system, arguing that the ugly trend had been there since 1979 and even earlier.