Some influential leaders of the All Progressives Congress, has led hundreds of its members in some Local Government Areas and defected to Peoples Democratic Party, in Edo State.
With a reported promise by the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to ensure that dividends of democracy were circulated among all members, hundreds of All Progressives Congress (APC) members in Owan West and Owan East Local Government Areas of Edo State, have defected to PDP in Edo state.
Vanguard reported that the APC defectors, who were received in Sabongida Ora, headquarters of Owan West council, by former Senate Chief Whip, Senator Roland Owie, former Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly, Zakawanu Garuba, and state deputy chairman, Christopher Adesotu, who represented the state chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, said: “You are making history today because the North and South of Nigeria were amalgamated 100 years ago.”
The former Senate Chief Whip, charged the people of South-South geo-political zone to pray that President Goodluck Jonathan contests next year’s presidential election and also called on the North to exercise patience and wait for their turn to produce the president.
According to Senator Owie, the PDP had been vindicated by last week’s verdict of the judges of the Edo State Local Government Election Tribunal that ordered fresh poll in Esan North-East council, calling on the members of Edo State Independent Electoral Commission to resign and face trial.
Among the APC leaders who joined PDP along with their supporters were; Chief Sunday Ekehinde and Tunde Ehindero, who said they had to leave APC because the party was corrupt, promising to expose the corruption in the party soon.
Zakawanu Garuba, who represented the former Chief of Staff to President Jonathan, Chief Mike Oghiadomhe, said the days of the ruling APC administration in the state were numbered, given what the party members described as misrule and destruction of the fabrics of governance in the state.