Group slams Akpabio’s planned defection to APC

Saraki’s former chief of staff joins PDP
Oro Reclamation Movement (ORM) has warned that any negotiation the All Progressives Congress (APC) enters into with Senator Godswill Akpabio representing Ikot Ekpene without considering the interest of Oro nation would be an exercise in futility.The Senate minority leader, who governed Akwa Ibom for eight years on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is reportedly set to join the ruling APC.

Akpabio, until recently, had been a vocal opposition in the Red Chamber.ORM, in a statement entitled ‘APC 2019 Governorship: It’s Oro nation or nothing else’, asserted: “We watch with disgust and dismay the intrigues surrounding the purported defection of former Akwa Ibom State governor, Godswill Akpabio, from PDP to APC, under a kind of diplomatic ‘plea bargain’ with President Muhammadu Buhari and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) meant to, among others, truncate the Oro 2019 aspiration.

The Oro Reclamation Movement says only the zoning of the governorship seat to Oro by APC will bring unity, peace and development to Akwa Ibom State as envisaged by its founding fathers.

Signed by ORM president, Anietie Isong, the statement noted that the state is standing on a tripod of the Ibibio, Annang and Oro, stressing that others but Oro had tested the governorship.

In another development, the former chief of staff to Senate President Bukola Saraki, Senator Issa Galaudu, has formerly announced his defection from APC to PDP. While addressing his supporters yesterday in his Argungu hometown, Kebbi State, he disclosed that having consulted stakeholders, he was leaving the ruling APC to the party he helped to build.

Fielding questions from newsmen shortly after, Galaudu said the current administration failed the masses by not fulfilling its campaign promises.“I have an overwhelming support to re-unite with the party I helped to build in Kebbi State. Today, I am very happy to say goodbye to APC and home sweet home to PDP,” he added.

He lamented the level of killing and kidnapping that characterised the APC administration, urging people to rally round PDP as they did in the past.“Security of lives and property, as well as liberty of citizens, is a constitutional duty of any responsible government. This is unacceptable,” he said.