The Rivers State chapter of the People’s Democrat­ic Party (PDP) has con­cluded arrangement to receive to its fold over 8,000 defectors from the All Progressives Con­gress (APC).
The grand reception is scheduled to hold on Thursday, April 13, 2017 – in Port Har­court.
Rivers State Governor Nye­som Wike would formally re­ceive the defectors at the event.
Indeed, following the widely acknowledged outstanding per­formance of Governor Nyesom Wike, APC members have been decamping in droves to the PDP.
Some of the defecting APC members have said that they opted to return to the PDP be­cause of Governor Wike’s im­pressive performance.
Meanwhile, the PDP leader­ship in the state, elated over the development, has said that the party, whose symbol is the um­brella, is large enough to accom­modate all the returnees.
In a statement issued by Mr. Jerry Needam, his Special Adviser on Media and Public­ity, the PDP Chairman, Mr. Fe­lix Obuah, said the party’s posi­tion followed the endless list of defectors from the APC to the PDP in Rivers State.
He said that the latest of such defections involved for­mer Governor Rotimi Amae­chi’s chief political strategist, Chief Emeh Glory Emeh, who led other chieftains of the APC back to the PDP.
Obuah said that Emeh’s bold move had further opened the door for over 8,000 de­campees from the APC across the 23 local government areas of the state, adding that the latest members of the APC defectors came from Asari-Toru and De­gema Local Government Areas.
Emeh was former Sen­ior Special Adviser on Media and Strategy, Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Commissioner for Transport and Aviation during Governor Peter Odili’s administration and Chief of Staff, Rivers State Gov­ernment House.
Obuah described him as a grassroots mobiliser, lawyer and chartered accountant, “who has since his return to the PDP, co­ordinated the daily defections of members and leaders of the APC to the PDP, some of who include the over 200 former councillors of the APC, who were sacked by the court; for­mer Special Adviser to Amaechi on Internal Revenue, Nwank­wo Nwankwo; former Com­missioner for Culture under Amaechi, Sunny Nwokekoro; APC Leader in ONELGA, Me­rino Okiraija; former Chairman of Emohua LGA, Bob Okala, and numerous non-indigenes residing in the LGAs who left the APC, amongst others.”
According to Obuah, “these are clear indications that the APC structure in the state has collapsed.”
Ahead of the planned recep­tion, Obuah told a crowd at the PDP state secretariat that the state has been set for the official reception of the over 8,000 de­fectors from the APC.
He also announced this when he received APC defectors from Akuku-Toru and Degema Local Government Areas.
The leader of the decampees from Akulga, who was a for­mer leader of the LGA Legisla­tive Assembly, Hon. Orolosama Amachree, at the event, accused Amaechi of coercing all “elect­ed” chairmen and councillors of the APC into instituting le­gal action against the adminis­tration of Wike to make the state ungovernable.
Amachree and his support­ers turned the occasion into a gyration amid singing and dancing.
The activities of former Council Chairman, Ojukaye Flag Amachree, had plunged the area into a crisis which ren­dered his followers homeless, prompting them to flee to Abu­ja where they hoped to get suc­cour from Amaechi who is Riv­ers APC Leader and Minister for Transportation.
“But when we met Amae­chi, our leader in Abuja, and told him of our predicament and requested his assistance to get accommodation, he bluntly told us ‘If you don’t have accom­modation, why did you have to come to me. Am I the landlord of Abuja?’, Amachree was quot­ed as saying.
Another “big fish” caught by the PDP dragnet was the Vice Chairman of Degema LGA, Hon. Samuel Ikiroma, who stormed the party secretariat with hundreds of supporters.
The soft-spoken APC lead­er, who handed his council­lorship certificate of return to Obuah for destruction, said that he was now enjoying gen­uine peace since he took the de­cision to dump the APC. - The Authority