A faction of the Anambra State chapter
of the Peoples Democratic Party has met with the leadership of the All
Progressives Congress to put the finishing touches to their plans to
defect.
The
PDP delegation, which was led by Mr. Tony Nwoye, met with the National
Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, and other leaders of the
party at the APC headquarters, in Abuja, on Tuesday.
Nwoye, who was the Anambra State PDP
governorship candidate during the 2015 general elections, informed the
APC leaders that their resolve to defect to the APC had received the
blessings of the leaders of the PDP in Anambra State, including a former
vice- president, Dr. Alex Ekwueme.
Nwoye explained that he and his loyalists were leaving the opposition PDP because the party has lost direction.
He said, “We are leaving the PDP on
principle. What they are doing in the PDP is not acceptable to us. We
have taken time to read the APC manifesto and constitution. What
attracted us to the APC is party discipline and internal democracy.
“That was why we decided to consult
widely and we met with all our leaders, and financiers such as Chief
Arthur Eze, Mr. Emeka Offor, and Dr. (Alex) Ekwueme, who formed the
party.”
Nwoye told the APC national chairman
that they were prepared to work closely with the APC chieftains not only
in the state and the South-East zone but in Nigeria as a whole.
He also invited Odigie-Oyegun and other
APC leaders to what he referred as a grand rally to mark their formal
defection before the end of the year.
In his remarks, Odigie-Oyegun said the
APC family was happy about the decision of the PDP stalwarts to return
home because the current APC-led administration was prepared to carry
all Nigerians along in rebuilding the nation.
He said, “You are most welcome. I want
to emphasis one thing. We are glad you are coming but we are not
attempting to build a one-party nation.
“So many years of indescribable bad
governance, you are the engine room that makes things happen. We got to
the brink and the people saw the light and voted massively for the APC.”
The party chairman blamed the renewed agitation for the creation of Biafra on bad governance.
Odigie-Oyegun stressed that it was time that Nigerian leaders started reinventing the nation.
He added, “The manifestation of the
so-called Biafra thing, the resurgence of cultism and criminality all
over the nation shows how close we were to the brink and the enormity of
the job to be done by all to bring this nation back.”
