Osita Okechukwu: CPC Fully Supports Tinubu, We Cannot Destroy The House That We Built

On Apr 18, 2025

Amid rising political tensions within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a founding member and former Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu, has reiterated the loyalty of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) bloc of the APC to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, declaring that the group has no intention of abandoning the party it helped build.

Speaking during an interview on ARISE NEWS on Friday, Okechukwu dismissed rumours of an imminent defection by key CPC figures following recent attacks on the Tinubu administration by former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

““We got the rumour that was saying that the CPC block of the APC, that we’re leaving the APC. So we said no, that our resolution, after the meeting we held, was that we have no need to leave the house, the APC. We toiled from 2004, after losing the 2003 presidential election, 2007, 2011, that germinated in 2013, that we cannot destroy the house we built. There was a merger that brought all tendencies in the country, all religion, all drives into one umbrella tree, that we cannot destroy that, that it would be very poor for us to try to destroy the house we built.

“And secondly, as you said, why are we supportive and loyal to Mr. President? We said, we cannot, in all good conscience and honesty, forget the critical role President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR played in getting the merger to fruition”

He described the merger that birthed the APC in 2013 as a painstaking coalition that brought together multiple political traditions, ethnic groups, and regional interests—including the CPC, ACN, ANPP, and a faction of APGA—and insisted that abandoning that platform now in spite of hardship in Nigeria, in light of all that Tinubu did to bring the merger to fruition, would be politically irresponsible.

Okechukwu said, “Now that he became the president, why should we abandon him? Yes, we understand the kitchen table issues that bothers Nigeria, that there is hunger in the land. But we looked at his economic reform program, and we said these economic reform programs will bring fruition in the fullness of time. And at any rate, all the three major presidential candidates are common on the same agenda that president Tinubu had, that they will remove fuel subsidy.

“All we did was, after the meeting, we set up some committees. One of the important ones was mobilisation and contact. And we said the contact should reach Mr. President, and address the concerns of Nigerians about the economic hardship in the country. And the mobilisation should work on our colleagues, the former governor El-Rufai, and others. We said we should also talk to them, to tell them where are you going? Are you going to join those who disorganised and dislocated their political party? Where are you going? You don’t need to go there. There’s no road there. And they don’t have a different agenda from us as well. So that is where we are. We said we cannot destroy the house we built, and we must support Mr. President.”

Okechukwu’s comments come in the wake of strong remarks by former Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, who recently described Tinubu’s government as the most corrupt and backward in Nigeria’s history, further alleging that the APC had “deviated from the ideals” that birthed the party.

Responding to this, former House Minority Leader Farouk Aliyu, also a CPC stalwart, accused El-Rufai of acting out of personal disappointment after failing to secure a ministerial appointment.

“Mallam Nasir El-Rufai said that President Tinubu is the most corrupt, or the APC government is the worst government, when did he realiSe this? Is it because he’s not a minister today?”

Aliyu described El-Rufai as an opportunist and political chameleon, recalling how he once insulted northern elders while campaigning vigorously for Tinubu.

“If Nasir El-Rufai were made a minister, today he would have probably been at the forefront of insulting people. You know, but he lost out, and he cannot see it as an act of God,” he added.

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi