AKPABIO: NO PDP GOVERNOR WILL DEFECT TO APC

Also, Akwa Ibom State governor and chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Godswill Akpabio, has said no PDP governor will defect to the proposed All Progressive Congress (APC).

Akpabio stated this at the end of the PDP Governors’ Forum meeting in Abuja in the early hours of yesterday. He also described as a blatant lie claims by the former governor of Zamfara State and APC chieftain, Senator Sani Yerima, that some PDP governors had concluded plans to join the APC.

Describing Yerima’s statement as untrue, Akpabio said  rather than defecting to the APC, the PDP governors were working round the clock to bring more governors into the PDP fold.

He added that part of the decisions reached at the end of the PDP Governors’ meeting included the setting  up of a five-man security advisory committee to collaborate with the federal government in tackling the security challenges confronting the country.

Members of the security advisory committee, which is headed by Adamawa State governor Murtala Nyako, are Governors Ibrahim Shema (Katsina), Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Rabiu Kwakwanso (Kano) and Theodore Orji (Abia).

On the crisis in the south-west zone of the party, Akpabio declared that Governor Uduaghan had submitted an interim report on how to resolve the crisis, saying that the forum was awaiting the full report which would be transmitted to the national leadership of the party as its contribution toward restoration of peace in the south-west PDP.

The PDP governors also declared that they had made proposals for the review of the constitution of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) to strengthen the body.

But the national publicity secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, has described the recent controversy trailing the APC identity as proof that the leaders of the APC were all the while grandstanding and writing footnotes.

In a statement made available yesterday, Metuh said, “Nigerians are here confronted with an irony!  It is an irony of a political party who without adequate planning, without a  solid working rhythm,  yet wishes to be entrusted to its effete, shaky shoulders, the fate of over 160 million Nigerians.

“Fortunately, Nigerians are witnessing firsthand the thoughtlessness and carelessness of the self-acclaimed political messiahs, a forewarning that the nation, her people and our democracy are all in jeopardy should they be entrusted with power. How can a group who could not conclude the basic as in due registration of its name be able to manage the affairs of Nigeria at this moment of critical challenge?

“At the basics, the APC and its conjugants - the ACN, CPC, ANPP and others -- have once more advertised their boastful and deceitful predilection. Who could imagine that their coalition was yet to be registered before its leaders started throwing red rag to the bull?”

Source: Leadership