APC members decamp to PDP in Ogun Defectors blame their exit from APC on the state governor, Mr. Amosun. The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Ogun State chapter, on Monday, lost scores of its members to the opposition, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The defection took place at Ota Town in Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area. The PDP also declared that it was not going to merge with another opposition party, Labour Party, ahead of the 2015 elections as has been speculated. A chieftain of the PDP, Rafiu Ogunleye, who was a former Deputy Governor in the state, predicted that the APC would lose more members. He said his prediction was based on APC’s alleged politics of exclusion and the domineering tendencies of loyalists of Governor Ibikunle Amosun. He claimed that Mr. Amosun had hijacked the Ogun APC structure and personalised it to the detriment of other leaders in the party. “Within a month from now, you will see a lot of people defecting from APC to PDP. I’m very sure of what I’m saying. “Our present governor claimed that he controls 215 wards out of the 236 in the state. How many is left for the leaders of the party? Is it out of the remaining that (former governor, Olusegun) Osoba and other leaders would be expected to share from? So, many people would leave,” he said. “But if we work hard, the 215 wards that the governor now claims to be in control of will eventually be controlled by the PDP in 2015. We are determined in the PDP to wrestle power from Amosun.” Mr. Ogunleye, who defected to PDP from the APC in 2013, said the APC defectors would enjoy equal benefits with the old members of the PDP. He urged the defectors to work towards winning the state for PDP in the next elections. The state PDP chairman, Adebayo Dayo, ruled out any merger plan with the Labour Party in the state for the purposes of the 2015 polls. Mr. Dayo told journalists that the PDP was focused on repositioning itself for greatness. “It is not a matter of fusion. All of them have been coming from the APC and the Labour Party to join the PDP because the PDP is the only party that can take them to the federal level. We have no plans to fuse with any party. What we are doing now is to reunite aggrieved members of the party, to reposition it for greatness,” Mr. Dayo said. The leader of the defectors who is a former Ogun State House of Assembly member, Oluwole Asade, said the former APC members decamped to protest the alleged insensitivity of the governor to their welfare and political interests. He stated that the party members regretted working for the emergence of the incumbent administration in the last governorship election. Some notable PDP leaders at the event included Buruji Kashamu; former southwest zonal secretary, Pegba Otemolu; former House of Representatives member, Kayode Amusan; a gubernatorial aspirant, Sikirulai Ogundele; former Commissioner for Agriculture, Tunji Akinosi; and Agboola Alausa.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 08:50:06 +0000
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