ANN TARGETS 10 MILLION MEMBERS

Nseobong Okon-Ekong

Rising from its first national convention in Abuja, one of the optimistic political parties, Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN) has set a lofty target of going beyond 10-million membership mark by October 2018, in view of the 2019 general elections.

In a valedictory, ANN’s interim national chairman, Dr. Jay Samuels said the party was the vehicle to take Nigeria to a new dawn. He described ANN as “a strong ideological platform to move us forward as a nation. We are the bedrock for a new Nigeria, and the platform on which an ideal Nigeria truly beckons. It is the assembly of a people with a special mission. We are a platform of credible Nigerians, without any baggage. We are fresh, young, and vibrant and ready to proceed from a different pedestal because we are not committed to any special interest.”

Introducing the new chairman of the party, Mr. Daniel Dania who was elected unopposed, Samuels stated that 70 per cent of ANN’s teeming membership was made up of the young and the under 30s.

Speaking in the same vein, Dania said ANN was divinely orchestrated to cause a generational leadership change in Nigeria that will lead the country on the path of posterity and greatness. According to him, the party was set on the ideals of equal joiners and equal ownership. “Every member has the same right as everyone else.”

Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, a leading presidential aspirant on the ANN platform called on professionals to play strategic roles in rebuilding the country’s economy. He said Nigeria has the human and material resources to banish poverty. “We have the creative minds to make Nigeria great,” he stated.

Encouraged by a loud ovation from the audience, he said, the ANN remains the vehicle through which the desires of Nigerians could be met. Olawepo-Hashim assured, “When ANN is elected, by the grace of God within 10 years, with the policies I have seen our leaders put together, the GDP of the country will grow seven fold and we will move the country out of poverty. Per capita income will average nothing less than $20,000. We have the resources, the brain, the power and the commitment to do it. We will stop the killings in the land; we will bring Nigeria back together again. The APC has divided Nigeria more than we have ever seen in the history of this country. In Nigeria of old, the great people of Kano, elected a Yoruba man MKO Abiola and didn’t vote for their own son of the soil, Ibrahim Tofa. They demonstrated that they were committed to one Nigeria. In the history of our country, the great people of Benue elected Sir Kashim Ibrahim to represent them.”

Another ANN presidential aspirant, Alhaji Ibrahim Dan-Musa was confident that an ANN government could bring Nigeria back from the vicious cycle of backwardness. He said, “Together we will wrestle power and then make the desired impact for the good of our people.”