Defections will not rescue Oyo APC, says PDP

The Oyo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday said the defection of some of its members to the All Progressives Congress (APC) would not stop it from

capturing the state in 2019.

It accused the APC of being jittery of an imminent defeat due to its poor performance, adding that one million of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu could not save the APC in the state.While reacting to the defection of its members to the APC, the PDP said the defectors had left the party since 2015 and wondered why the APC was celebrating a stale event if it were not afraid of PDP’s renewed strength in Oyo State.

A statement by its Publicity Secretary, Akeem Olatunji, described the defectors as dead horses that have no political value other than to have a negative impact on the PDP.

The defectors include former governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, former Senate Leader Teslim Folarin, former State Secretary to the Government (SSG), Ayodele Adigun and a PDP member in the House of Representatives, Dokun Odebunmi, among others.

The statement, however, commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the low key celebration of his 75th birthday and wondered why Governor Abiola Ajimobi could not borrow a leaf from Buhari but allegedly wasted public funds to celebrate his 68th birthday at the weekend.

Olatunji asked the governor to tell Oyo people when he would pay the salaries of striking lecturers in the six tertiary institutions in the state and challenged him to make public how much he spent on his 68th birthday.

“Our attention has been drawn to a statement credited to Bola Ahmed Tinubu at a function to welcome defectors to the APC long time ago wherein he expressed his fears indirectly over the continuous rise and dominance of the PDP in Oyo State politics and Nigeria at large.

“It is absurd that 90 per cent of the defectors have seized to be PDP members more than two years ago, while the remaining 10 per cent are politicians who make their living through politics and hence the need to be in the ruling party at all times because they lack ideologies and principles,” the statement said.