Delta APC Ranks Swells As Akpeki, Other PDP Chieftains Decamp

•Rumour of Uduaghan’s planned defection to APC thickens

By Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

Delta State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has vowed to stop at nothing until it displaces the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the dominant party in the state just as it happened at the centre.

Chieftain of the PDP in the state, Chief Paulinus Akpeki, made the assertion while making public his decision to ditch his old party for the APC at Asaba on Saturday.

The state Chairman of APC, Prophet Jones Ode Erue, was joined by a chieftain of the APC, Chief Ayiri Emami, and other leaders of the party to receive the defectors into the party.

Akpeki, who served in different capacities under the PDP government of the Uduaghan administration as commissioner for housing and chief of staff, was joined at by other state PDP top-notch officers including erstwhile PDP commissioners, Mr. Ebifa Ijeomah, Olorogun Jaro Egbo, and Mr. Misan Kubeyinje.

They were joined by Dr. John Ogheneovo Akwara, another PDP chieftain, who said he came to the venue of the press briefing as a mark of solidarity with Akpeki, because he shared the view that “things can’t continue as they are; but we must follow the wind of change blowing across the nation.”

The defection of PDP leaders was coming at a time the rumour is rife of the impending defection of the immediate past governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan.

However, none of the politicians at yesterday’s event, including Erue, Akpeki, Emami and Egbo was willing to confirm the rumour of Uduaghan’s planned defection to APC.

The state party chairman simply told newsmen that since the biblical John the Baptist could not initially identify who “The Christ” was, he too could not tell who the expected “political Christ” bound for the APC platform was until he appears on the scene.

Akpeki described the event as “merely a harbinger of the unstoppable gale of mass defection from PDP to APC which will be witnessed in Delta State very soon.”

However, THISDAY learnt that a high-powered group of APC national leaders, led by Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, was “working at it” and putting finishing touches to the grand plan to bring Uduaghan and thousands of his political disciples into the APC.

Speaking at the occasion, Emami, an Itsekiri chief who holds the traditional title of Akulagba of Warri Kingdom, noted that the task to build APC into a powerful political structure was no mean one, said that Delta State was too important to be allowed to belong to the opposition camp.

He said numerous PDP leaders across the 25 local government areas of the state were warming to dump the party for the APC but were only bidding their time until the expected time to go public with the mass defection plans.
Meanwhile, Akpeki disclosed that what he called “a harvest of political heavyweights” by the APC in Delta State would crystallise soon with a major political rally billed for his home base of Sapele.
The highpoint of the event was the presentation of the symbolic broom of the APC to Akpeki on behalf of all the defecting PDP leaders even as Erue assured that individual brooms would be given to all the new members during the expected rally of the party to receive them.