Ex- governorship candidate dumps APC for PDP

Jethro Ibileke/Benin

Candidate of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in the 2012 governorship election in Edo State, Solomon Edebiri, on Thursday in Benin City defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He described the Edo APC as a “limited liability company, where governor Adams Oshiomhole is the manager,” adding that lack of internal democracy and other anti-democratic tendencies of the old ACN were carried over to the APC.

“What took place in Edo State during and after the last local government congress negated all I thought about how democracy should be practiced. Before my very eyes, I saw the erosion of the principles of agreement which we all swore to uphold. Efforts aimed at resolving these issues met brick walls and there was no sign that the situation was going to get better.

“Believing that the political aspirations of my people cannot be met within the APC, I hereby without regret denounce my membership of APC and join the PDP along with my followers from this day onward. I took this decision, not for myself alone but for the over 100,000 party members that believe in the Solomon Edebiri philosophy,” Edebiri said.

The state PDP chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, who received the former governorship ‎candidate and other defectors, including a Woman Leader in the APC, Mrs. Kate Asemota, and members of the Edo Boys Group, said the occasion would mark the beginning of the fall of the Edo APC.

He said Governor Adams Oshiomhole rode on the back of workers in the state to become governor and abandoned them upon his assumption of office, pointing out that the APC government has impoverished Edo people through an oppressive tax policies and failed electoral promises.

“He [Oshiomhole] deceived workers, teachers, students, doctors, okada riders, market women, artisans and everybody but he could not deceive me. He could not deceive me because I knew him and I still know him very much,” Orbih alleged.

He also called on other APC members, who are still undecided about joining the PDP to “come home” as the party was prepared to embrace them.