Thousands of card-carrying members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Gombe State, including a former Deputy Governor, John Yoriyo, a former gubernatorial aspirant, Abdulkadir Hamma Saleh, a former member of the House of Representatives, Abubakar Abubakar BD, party executives at various wards, local government levels and others decamped to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Gombe State PDP Chairman, M. A Kwaskebe, a retired Major General, received over 30, 000 decampees Saturday in Gombe on behalf of the party leader and former governor of the state, Ibrahim Dankwambo at the state PDP Secretariat.
The Chairman said the decampees came at the right time, saying all decampees now have equal membership in the party irrespective of when they joined, promising that their loyalty would be richly rewarded if they contribute to the success of the party in the 2023 election.
“We are glad to receive those that left the party, thinking that the PDP had collapsed. They are now coming back home,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of the decampees, two-term deputy governor in the state, Mr Yoriyo and Abdulkadir Saleh who spoke on behalf of the decampees from Gombe South and Gombe North Senatorial Districts respectively, decried the ruling party’s resort to “lies and propaganda” to cover its ineptitude and lack of focused leadership.
Mr Yoriyo said “It is obvious that the APC has failed in Nigeria, especially in the area of security”, adding that the PDP remained the best political party in Nigeria when compared to what is obtainable in the APC.
He added that, “I was in the APC and I have seen everything that is happening, nothing encouraging. PDP is the best place to be. There was nothing like democracy under APC in Gombe State. Nobody knows what is happening; we were ignorant; we are just being ruled.”
Mr Saleh in his part cited the APC government’s failure to live up to its election promises and it’s “unwise policies that inflict hardship” on the citizens as their main reason for leaving the APC for PDP.
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He promised to work assiduously to ensure the PDP bounces back to power in the state and federal level.
Also speaking, a former Chief of Staff in the state, Yayari assured the defectors that they would be carried along in the scheme of things, stating that it is high time to join hands and rescue the state from misrule of the APC government.
In his remarks, former member representing Balanga/Billiri federal constituency, Ali Isa JC, expressed optimism that all elections in the state would be won by the party.
He opined that the state’s electorate had gotten disenchanted by the APC’s poor performance in the state.
The event which featured the formal renouncing of their membership of their former parties by the decampees, attracted the presence of huge crowd at the state’s party secretariat.
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