Share!
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has mocked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the recent defection of some members of the opposition party to the ruling party.
MERIDIAN SPY reported Wednesday, Elisha Abbo, Senator representing Adamawa North in the National Assembly, quit his membership of the PDP and joined the ruling APC. This came weeks after Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State similarly defected to the ruling party.
Reacting to the recent defections, the ruling party, in a statement issued on Thursday, said it was not surprised that “progressive-minded members of the PDP have been defecting enmasse from the opposition party to the APC in recent times”.
“For a party unable to run its Secretariat, pay staff salaries and its leadership grappling with a crisis of confidence it will be unfair to expect its progressive-minded members to remain in the PDP which has failed woefully as the supposed ‘main’ opposition party in Nigeria.
“It is disheartening that the PDP is pushing Nigeria into a largely one-party state.”
The APC noted that the PDP has failed to act as an opposition party and challenged other political parties to take its place.
“As a party that believes in democracy and progressive politics, the APC does not subscribe to this. We therefore challenge other opposition political parties to take the place of the PDP because even as the governing party we recognize the importance of rigorous and intelligent interrogation of our policies and programmes by the opposition which the PDP has woefully failed to do,” the ruling party noted.
“Recall that APC recently welcomed the Governor David Nweze Umahi and Senator Elisha Abbo.
“This is in addition to earlier return of many prominent Party members and leaders including, former PDP national chairman, Senator Barnabas Gemade; former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Dr. Alex Otti among others.
“As a party, the APC welcomes new and returning entrants who have come to work with the President Muhammadu Buhari APC-led administration to improve the lives of Nigerians and overall better our dear country.
“The party ranks greatly appreciate the important work the CECPC under the Chairmanship of Gov Mai Mala Buni is doing to reposition the party by accomodating all interests and ensuring peace, unity, fairness, equity, justice and inclusion and internal democracy in our great party
“The Gov Buni-led CECPC is achieving great success in ensuring that the Party is repositioned, united, and conducts the planned membership registration, update and revalidation exercise to produce a credible and authentic national membership register ahead of the National Convention.
“The PDP and Atiku Abubakar who has began early 2023 campaign on the PDP’s presidential candidature he is poised to purchase, are engrossed with their Dubai meetings to plot their hallucinatory return to ensure their bid to selloff the remainder of our national assets. Nigerians are wiser.”