ENUGU – COORDINATOR of the 2015 Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign organization in Enugu state, Chief Rex Onyeabor, has defected to the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Until his defection to the APC, Onyeabor was a member Board of Trustee, BOT, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and at one time an acting National Secretary of the party.
During his official defection at his country home, Ugbawka, Nkanu East local government area of Enugu state, Onyeabor said he was cross carpeting to the APC because the PDP was not likely to survive it’s present leadership crisis.
He said: “Apart from being former national secretary, I was BOT member which is the highest advisory body in PDP and I attended a lot of meetings, virtually every meeting, reconciliation meeting.
“There are some people who are still there attending meeting to reconcile; you see what they are doing now, Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi, and recently Jonathan and Seriake (Dickson); it is not likely that an agreement will be reached very soon.
“There are some people who are still there attending meeting to reconcile; you see what they are doing now, Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi, and recently Jonathan and Seriake (Dickson); it is not likely that an agreement will be reached very soon.
“So I looked at all the efforts we have made in the past trying to restructure the party, trying to bring the party out of the melancholy or depression of defeat, it has not worked; that’s why I decided to pick my bag and take a walk.”
Aside from that, Chief Onyeabor said that APC provides the best platform for changing Nigeria for now, noting that though APC might not be the best party in the world but that it was better than other parties in Nigeria today.
On what might have prompted the mass exodus of notable Igbo politicians into APC, Onyeabor said that Igbos have now seen the light and that given what he knows about PDP, which he said he was not ready to make public, he now believes APC was the best choice for the realization of Igbo aspirations in Nigeria.
Enugu state chairman of the APC, Dr. Ben Nwoye expressed excitement for the influx of political bigwigs into his party, saying that they were joining not only to help win elections but to also organize the party as some of them are political technocrats and bureaucrats.
Notable among former members of PDP who recently defected to the APC in Enugu state include the former Senate President, Ken Nnamani; former Governor of old Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo, and former speaker of the state House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Eugene Odo.
The immediate past Governor of the State, Mr. Sullivan Chime recently resigned his membership of the PDP but is yet to make official declaration into APC.
By Dennis Agbo
