Information coming out of Abia State, eastern Nigeria suggests that at least 1,000 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have defected to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Ukwa West Local Government Area.
A chieftain of APGA in Abia state, Chief Mark Anaba, made this revelation while he was receiving the defectors at Obehie, saying with the stream of defections of members of other political parties in Abia State to APGA, the party was poised to win next year’s governorship election.
Anaba also stated that their aim is to win next year’s governorship election in the state and to give Abia people a purposeful administration.
He noted that APGA would not be discouraged in its ambition to institute the desired change in the politics of the state in 2015.
Chief Anaba urged both old and new members of the party to work collectively to ensure that APGA, which he described as the only hope for Ndigbo, won the next governorship election in the state.
Mr. Evans Adiele, who was the Spokesman of the defectors, stated that they left PDP to APGA with the belief that their new party would provide what PDP could not provide for the people.
“It is regrettable that since the former governor, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu left office, my area has not witnessed the impact of governance in this area. Our standard of living has dropped in the last eight years and yet, we are an oil-producing area.
“We plant crops and produce foods, but we cannot transport these crops to the urban areas because our roads are bad. We have many oil wells, yet our people are suffering in penury,” he said.
A former local government chairman, Sylvanus Nwaji, also stated that the people of the area had been treated as slaves and strangers in their land in the last eight years.
