Thousands of card-carrying members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Gombe state have defected to the Peoples Democratic Party.
The list of defectors includes a former deputy governor of the state, John Yoriyo, a former gubernatorial aspirant, Abdulkadir Hamma Saleh, a former member of the House of Representatives, Abubakar Abubakar BD, and party executives at various wards, local government levels.
Gombe State PDP chairman, M. A Kwaskebe, received the over 30,000 decampees on Saturday on behalf of the party leader and former governor of the state, Ibrahim Dankwambo, at the state PDP Secretariat.
The chairman said the decampees came at the right time, saying all decampees now have equal membership in the party irrespective of when they joined, promising that their loyalty would be richly rewarded if they contribute to the party’s success in the 2023 elections.
“We are glad to receive those that left the party, thinking that the PDP had collapsed. They are now coming back home”, he said.
Speaking on behalf of the decampees from Gombe South and Gombe North senatorial districts, respectively, two-term deputy governor in the state, Mr Yoriyo, and Abdulkadir Saleh, decried the ruling party’s resort to “lies and propaganda” to cover its ineptitude and lack of focused leadership.
Mr Yoriyo said “it is obvious that the APC has failed in Nigeria, especially in the area of security”, adding that the PDP remained the best political party in Nigeria when compared to what is obtainable in the APC”.
He added that “I was in the APC and I have seen everything that is happening, nothing encouraging. PDP is the best place to be. There was nothing like democracy under APC in Gombe State. Nobody knows what is happening; we were ignorant; we are just being ruled”.
Saleh, on his part, cited the APC government’s failure to live up to its election promises and its “unwise policies that inflict hardship” on the citizens as their main reason for leaving the APC for PDP.
He promised to ensure the PDP bounces back to power at the state and federal levels.
The event featured the decampees formally renouncing their membership of their former parties. It attracted a huge crowd at the state’s party secretariat.
