A founding member and leader of the Peoples Democratic Party in Abia State, Elder Monday Ihemezie, has said that the party lacks both the vision and capacity to liberate the state from underdevelopment.
Ihemezie stated this while speaking with our correspondent after he led over 500 members of the party to defect to the opposition All Progressives Congress in the Umunneochi Local Government Area.
He said with the manner the PDP administration was leading the state, it had become apparent that it could not take the people to the promised land, adding that the time had come for the people to vote it out for good.
“This is why we have abandoned the snail-speed party to join an electric train, which is the APC, which we believe will not only take the state to its desired dream on time but, also safely, too,” he said.
Ihemezie’s group, which included both Chukwuemeka Madu and Wilfred Ilo, the area’s youth leader and secretary of the party, respectively, said they had become “tired of the numerous lies of the ruling party in the state.”
The one-time transition committee chairman of the area lauded a leader of the party in the state, Chief Ikechi Emenike, for his support for the party and for securing Federal appointments for some of its members.
Earlier, while introducing the defectors to the party leadership in the area, its leaders, Barr Fab Okonkwo, commended them for realising the need to “jump the sinking PDP ship for the sailing APC.”
While assuring them of equal treatment as the old members of the party, Okonkwo, who was the chief host of the occasion, appealed to them to take the good message of the party to every nook and cranny of the area.
Similarly, the Abia North Zone Chairman of the APC, Chief Ejiofor Okeudo, said the party needed members of their quality to pursue its 2019 campaign agenda, saying their defection was timely.
In his speech, the state Chairman of the APC, Dr. Emmanue Ndukwe, assured the defectors that they would be accorded full rights and privileges by the party.
“You are also free to contest for any political position like older members,” he said.
He appealed to them to get prepared for the party’s election campaign slated for October, during which time they and other new members would be officially welcomed by Emenike.