The All Progressives Grand Alliance has declared that prominent politicians in the South-East defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress would eventually regret their decision.
APGA Deputy National Chairman, Uchenna Okogbuo, made this declaration during an exclusive chat with The Point in his Uzuakoli country home. Okogbuo argued that the prominent politicians from the zone now jumping on the bandwagon of defection to the APC would later realise that the ruling party had no place in the politics of the South-East geo-political zone.
He stressed that those Igbo politicians hoping to contest on the platform of the APC in the South-East would also end up frittering away their time and resources. Okogbuo said, “The unfortunate thing there is that APC has no place among Ndigbo.
Anybody that is contesting election under the APC is wasting both his time and resources.” He argued that having analysed the programmes, manifesto and projects embarked upon by the APC since it came into office, it had been discovered that “they are all self-serving and not in the interest of the nation and the people.”
The APGA chieftain, who accused the ruling party of sidelining the zone in its appointments and proposed projects, added that the APC had also been insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.
He, therefore, labeled the defectors as “spent political forces” that had lost relevance, even in their polling units, adding that with time, the APC would realise that it had lost its electoral values. “We know what to do and what to say about them.
At the appropriate time, we will tell the people all we know about them and how they had neglected them in the past,” Okogbuo said. He also expressed displeasure at the recent comment of the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, that four other governors in the zone would soon defect to the APC.
The APGA deputy chairman, who said that it was the comment that led to the recent exchange of words between Okorocha and the Anambra State governor, Willie Obiano, added that the Imo governor was merely seeking cheap popularity.
“He (Okorocha) can make any statement and they are ready to listen to him,” he said. Okogbuo argued that Obiano did not need to defect to the APC to win re-election, because his achievements in office, coupled with the support of the people, spoke volumes for him.
The APGA chief alleged that if Okorocha, who won the seat for his first term in office on the platform of the APGA and later defected to the APC, had not used state machinery for his second term bid, he would have lost re-election. He said he was happy that the people of the state had realised their mistakes and were ready to return to APGA, “a party that has the feeling of the people and heart and knows what commitment to development is.”
