Former Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu has reacted to the comment credited to the former governor of Sokoto State, Senator Aminu Tambuwal on the defection of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) members to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
According to Okechukwu, it is the trust deficit in the opposition PDP that has stimulated the defection of its members into APC.
Okechukwu, a foundation member of APC made his position known while speaking to some journalists in Abuja on Sunday.
He however slammed the former governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal on issues of conscience. According to him, Tambuwal was one of the persons who wrecked the PDP for supporting a Northern Presidential candidate for the 2023 Presidential election and, therefore has no conscience.
He dismissed the presuppositions of Tambuwal that people defecting to APC were doing so to escape the hunger in the land.
It would be recalled that Senator Aminu Tambuwal, the former governor of Sokoto State, at the North West Zonal meeting of the PDP, had expressed disappointment over the recent wave of defections by members of the Peoples Democratic Party to the ruling All Progressives Congress.
He was quoted as saying, “I believe that no one with a conscience will join the APC. People leave parties for different reasons, but what I have been observing in recent times are defections not based on the interest of the people but on stomach infrastructure.”
But Okechukwu responding to him, retorted that the wave of defections was basically the outcome of an erroneous breach of the rotation convention of the Presidential candidate and Section 7 of the PDP’s Constitution of which Tambuwal was one of the masterminds.
“One cannot fathom how my friend Senator Tambuwal didn’t rate the breach of the rotation convention, especially against his erstwhile bosom friend Nyesom Wike, Minister of FCT; who backed him in 2018 presidential primary when no aspirant of southern extraction in the PDP contested in obedience to the rotation convention as unconscionable?
“This is the offshoot of Wike Masquerade raging” – Okechukwu submitted.
He reminded Tambuwal and his cohorts that some patriotic members of the PDP are defecting because the party has been demobilised, irretrievably damaged and ineffective in playing its traditional role of the main opposition party.
Asked about the impending coalition or merger which will dislodge the APC in the 2027 presidential election, Okechukwu replied that the greed in the parties will not allow them to forge a solid merger.
He said they had already started cooking up awkward permutation of south 17 and north 11 years in Aso Villa, just to rupture again the rotation convention, as if Nigeria got independence in 1999.
“Tambuwal and cohorts act as if they have 100% votes of the north in their pocket and albeit the northern electorate are quarantined in a dormitory to be hauled to the polling booth on Election Day.
“Their masterminds always forget that the northern electorate is one of the most sophisticated in the country and cannot be toyed with.
“Or do they think that the southeastern electorate put all their eggs in one PDP’s electoral basket, even when APC presented Rt. Honourables Chuba Okadigbo and Edwin Umeuzoke in 2003 and 2007 as Vice Presidential candidates respectively are amnesia stricken? The defection is not about stomach infrastructure, it’s about PDP’s leadership trust deficit.” Okechukwu opined.
