The National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Debo Ologunagba, has given reasons why the opposition party dissolved its executives in Akwa Ibom State following the defection of Governor Umo Eno to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, Ologunagba said the decision was taken after the PDP’s National Working Committee (NWC) observed that the state’s party executives were no longer independent but were being controlled by the governor who had left the party.
“In Akwa Ibom State, the governor has left. We have noticed at the National Working Committee and party level that there seems not to be a difference between the members of the executives in that state and their alignment with the All Progressives Congress,” he explained.
Quoting the party’s constitution, he added, “Section 10, Subsection 6, says: ‘No member of the party shall align with other parties or groups to undermine the party or any of its selected government.’ It is an anathema that you will belong to two parties at the same time. We believe the Akwa Ibom executives are being controlled by the governor who has gone to the APC. The governor even said on tape that he will be in charge of the two parties.”
Akwa Ibom had been a PDP stronghold since the return of civil rule in 1999, but the defection of Governor Eno on June 6 ended the party’s unbroken dominance in the state. His defection also marked the second loss for the PDP in the South-South region within two months, following Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State who also joined the APC.
Four months after Eno’s defection, the PDP officially dissolved its executives in the state, insisting that the move was necessary to safeguard the party’s structures from being undermined.
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