Cross River APC scribe, 1,000 others defect to PDP

Assistant secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State, Sunday Omang, and over 1,000 of his supporters have defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Governor Ben Ayade’s campaign team, in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary and Senior Special Assistant on Media, Christian Ita, yesterday disclosed that they defected during Governor Ayade’s campaign rally in Bekwarra Council of the state.

Until his defection, Omang was also a member of President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign organisation in the state.

Addressing thousands of cheering PDP supporters at the rally, the erstwhile APC scribe, flanked by his co-defectors, said that no sensible Cross Riverian would remain in the APC after seeing Governor Ayade’s achievements in three and half years.

Omang said: “My decision to join the PDP was never influenced in anyway by anybody. Rather, I took the decision alongside my supporters to join PDP because of the good works Governor Ayade is doing to transform Cross River.”

At the rally, he said the northern zone of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and the over 50,000 commercial motorcyclists in Bekwarra declared their unalloyed support for the governor in his re-election bid.

Meanwhile, former governor and APC leader in Bayelsa State, Chief Timipre Sylva, at the weekend received thousands of youths who dumped the PDP for his party.

The defectors, mostly youths, who are indigenes of Tombia-Ekpetiama clan, said the PDP had nothing to offer them and promised to work for the emergence of APC candidates in their constituencies.

One of them, Ebi Alamiyeseigha, said he held many positions in the PDP in the past but chose to abandon the party because it had not brought development to their clan.

Sylva commended the defectors, saying that they took the right decision by abandoning the PDP.

Earlier at the palace of the paramount ruler of Ekpetiama, HRH Otobotekere Christian, the former governor had solicited support for Bayelsa APC candidates.