2023 Guber: Defection Looms In Rivers APC *…We Expect More -PDP Chair
3 min read
Edith CHUKU
Cross carpeting from one political party to the other has commenced as the 2023 general elections draw nearer. One of the shockers this yuletide season, is the defection of one of the APC leaders in Emuoha Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nnamdi Abah.
Abah, one of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi’s trusted allies, last weekend, officially dumped the APC as he re-joined his former party, the PDP.
Describing this move as a heavy blow and setback to the APC, a member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the state, Bright Jossy opines that Abah’s defection, “may not be unconnected to the fact that the APC had long ago gone into extinction in Rivers State, resulting from lack of effective leadership in the party, as well as the sterling performance of the PDP led government in Rivers State.”
Though, there are speculations that Abah dumped the APC following Amaechi’s alleged failure to make him the next executive director of projects in the Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, as supposedly promised.
Abah, a former Obio/Akpor Local Government Council engineer, and erstwhile caretaker committee chairman of Emohua LGA, was said to have re-joined his former party, after a closed door meeting with the former minister for transportation proved unproductive.
During a meeting with the governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike and the governorship candidate of the PDP, Siminalayi Fubara, Sunday night at the governor’s country home in Obio-Akpor LGA, Abah, who was led by the chairman of Emohua local government area, Dr. Chidi Lloyd, declared his intention to return to the PDP.
While Jossy described this defection as, “the total eradication of the rag-tag remnants of the APC in Rumueche community and ward 4 Emohua LGA by extension,” the PDP Ward 14 chairman has expressed optimism that more will defect to his party from the opposition parties in the state.
Emeka Owhor in an exclusive interview with TNN said “I am not surprised, we in the PDP are not surprised. In fact, we expect more, much more. What we have is the umbrella, and it is large enough to accommodate everybody, I mean everybody.
“We expect that before the end of January, 2023, almost everybody who knows this truth, and believes this truth must have returned home to the PDP.”
Owhor said “the truth is that PDP in Rivers State is the only party to call home, yes, whatever you describe a home to be, a true, peaceful home, that and more, is what the Rivers PDP stands for. Again, our leader, Chief Barr. E.N Wike has shown how much he loves Rivers people, through infrastructural development, rehabilitation of schools, roads, down to employment.”
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“And you know that we have never had it this good before, Rivers people are testifying, governor Wike has been a blessing to this state, even the opposition knows that, they do, so, anybody that tests honey, and appreciates good things, will surely return to the PDP.”
Ahead of the 2023 elections, he continued that, “we expect electorate to speak their mind with their votes, it is one right and decision that no one can take away from them.”