Pascal Arogorn Ibe
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has called on other political parties to take the place of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the main opposition in Nigeria.
APC Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, made the call in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.
He said it was not a surprise that those he described as progressive-minded members of the PDP were defecting from the opposition party to the ruling party.
“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,” he claimed.
The APC spokesman added, “It is disheartening that the PDP is pushing Nigeria into a largely one-party state. 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 recognise the importance of rigorous and intelligent interrogation of our policies and programmes by the opposition which the PDP has woefully failed to do.”
Nabena noted the recent defection of Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, as well as the lawmaker representing Adamawa North Senatorial District, Senator Elisha Abbo, from the PDP to the APC.
According to him, this is in addition to the earlier return of many prominent party members and leaders such as a former PDP National Chairman, Senator Barnabas Gemade; a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and former governorship candidate, Alex Otti, among others.
The APC spokesman stated that the party was delighted with the development, saying the returnees have come to work with the present administration to improve the lives of Nigerians.
He added the effort of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) to reposition the party by accommodating all interests and ensuring peace, unity, fairness, equity, justice, inclusion, and internal democracy was appreciated.
“The Governor Mai Mala Buni-led CECPC is working assiduously and has achieved great success in ensuring that the party is repositioned, united, and conducts the planned membership registration, update, and revalidation exercise to produce a clean, credible and authentic national membership register, ahead of the planned National Convention,” Nabena said.
He alleged, “For now, the PDP and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who has begun 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 sell off the remainder of our national assets.
“Nigerians are wiser.”
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