3,000 Supporters Defect from PDP To APC In Edo

The political fortune of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Edo State chapter, brightened at the weekend when a leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former chairman of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) in Edo State, Comrade Johnbull Asemota, the present chairman, Comrade Osahon Osamuyi, 20 members of the PDP Executive in Uhumwonde LGA and members of the NUPENG union, numbering over 3,000 formally joined the APC at a mass rally in Benin City, last Saturday.

Comrade Asemota said he decided to join the APC to lend support to the governor in his quest to rapidly develop the state.

The state governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who addressed the defecting PDP leaders and their massive supporters, said “I am happy today that many people have continued to see the developmental projects of this administration especially Uhumwonde people by joining the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“This man you see with me is a Comrade like me and those people who separated us before now have gone and he is with us today. In fact, PDP is finished in Uhumwonde local government. For too long, few people have held Edo State in bondage; they pocketed everything they saw and reduced the state to a laughing stock.”

He said “when I arrived here in 2007, PDP said I was joking; that they will rig the election because everybody as at then believed that rigging was a way of life, but we have demobilized them”.

Oshiomhole stressed “in all elections conducted from the units to the 192 wards in the state, we have defeated the Peoples Democratic Party.

God has used us to deepen their graves because God can see our heart.

“I read a report in one of the National newspapers last week where the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh said the trouble in Edo is caused by the Comrade Governor because he wants to become the next Vice-President of Nigeria.

Oshiomhole said “right there in the Villa in Abuja, I told them that I am qualified to be the President of Nigeria because I have the qualifications, the integrity, the pedigree and the capacity to do so.

I have commanded the productive forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

According to him, “the issue of President or Vice-President is not the problem. I have a job which I applied for. I have asked for the mandate to govern Edo State and I promised to deliver on my promises even without any stated point or agenda.

He said “the water, the roads, the schools and electricity supply delivered to the people have become my own agenda. The APC government does not believe in any 4-point or 7-point agenda. Ours is eye-marked and not ear-marked.

In his remarks, leader of the decampees, Comrade Johnbull Asemota who was a one-time House of Representatives aspirant on the platform of the PDP said “before the coming of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, when it’s going to rain, cellophane bags are seen flying everywhere. Today Oshiomhole has cleaned the environment.

The APC State Chairman, Mr. Anselm Ojezua later decorated the Leader of the defectors, Comrade Johnbull Asemota, the present NUPENG Chairman Edo State, Comrade Osahon Osamuyi and others with APC emblem while their former PDP membership cards were openly destroyed.

Source: Leadership