Ahead of next year’s general elections, scores of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) members yesterday defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos yesterday.
The defectors are members of a sociopolitical group, the United Niger Delta Forum, which has been assisting the main opposition party to canvass for votes in Lagos.
About 2000 defectors were on hand at the APC secretariat in Ikeja, Lagos, yesterday, where they were received, singing, dancing and waiving the broom, the symbol of the party, to formally declare their intention to join the fold.
Its National Coordinator, Comrade Gabriel Ese, said the group was motivated to join the APC, because of the massive infrastructural developments in Lagos State, under the leadership of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.
Ese said: “We truly appreciate what Governor Ambode has been doing in Lagos State. His achievements so far are commendable. That is what motivated us to join the APC. From today, we are no longer in the PDP; we are now in the APC.
“We will join hands with other members of the party to ensure victory for Governor Ambode, President Muhammadu Buhari and other candidates on the platform of the party in next year’s general elections.”
He said the group had been in existence since 2006 as a voice for the people of the Niger Delta region.
He added that the APC approached the group before the last general elections to come on board the party, but the offer was rejected because a fellow Niger Deltan, in the person of former President Goodluck Jonathan, contested that election.
In his welcome remarks, the Lagos APC Chairman, Alhaji Tunde Balogun, assured the Niger Delta indigenes that with effect from yesterday they would be accorded all the rights and privileges due to them as members of the party.
Balogun urged them to go back to their respective wards and register as members of the party.