Okechukwu faults Tambuwal on PDP members defection to APC

A founding member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has faulted the claim by Senator Aminu Waziri Tambuwal that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members defecting to the APC lack conscience.

Answering questions from journalists on Tambuwal’s position, Okechukwu said that Tambuwal cannot truly talk of conscience when he connived to wreck the PDP; hence, it is the trust deficit of his party’s leadership that stimulates defectors.

It could be recalled that Senator Tambuwal, the former governor of Sokoto State, at the North West Zonal meeting of the PDP, had expressed disappointment over the recent wave of defections by members of the PDP to the ruling All Progressives Congress.

He was quoted as saying, “I believe that no one with conscience will join the APC. People leave parties for different reasons, but what I have been observing in recent times are defections not based on the interest of the people but on stomach infrastructure.”

Okechukwu, in response to this statement, retorted that the wave of defections is basically the outcome of the erroneous breach of the rotation convention of the presidency and Section 7 of the PDP’s Constitution, of which Tambuwal was one of the masterminds.

“One cannot fathom how my friend Senator Tambuwal didn’t rate the breach of the rotation convention, especially against his erstwhile bosom friend Nyesom Wike, Minister of FCT, who backed him in the 2018 presidential primary when no aspirant of southern extraction in the PDP contested in obedience to the rotation convention, as unconscionable.

“This is the offshoot of the Wike Masquerade raging,” Okechukwu submitted.

He reminded Tambuwal and his cohorts that some patriotic members of the PDP are defecting because the party has been demobilized, irretrievably wrecked, and rendered ineffective in playing its traditional role as the main opposition party.

When told of the impending coalition or merger that will dislodge the APC in the 2027 presidential election, Okechukwu replied that the greed in the party will not allow them to forge a solid merger.

He said they have already started cooking up an awkward permutation of the South having 17 years and the North 11 years in Aso Villa, just to rupture the rotation convention again, as if Nigeria got independence in 1999.

“Tambuwal and his cohorts act as if they have 100% of the North’s votes in their pocket, and as if the northern electorate is quarantined in a dormitory to be hauled to the polling booth on Election Day.

“Their masterminds always forget that the northern electorate is one of the most sophisticated in the country and cannot be toyed with.

“Or do they think that the southeastern electorate, which put all its eggs in one PDP electoral basket, even when the APC presented Rt. Honourables Chuba Okadigbo and Edwin Umezoke in 2003 and 2007 as vice presidents, respectively, is amnesia-stricken?

“The defection is not about stomach infrastructure; it’s about the PDP’s leadership trust deficit,” Okechukwu opined.