Emmanuel Not Nursing Ambition to Defect to APC, PDP Insists

By Okon Bassey

The Akwa Ibom State Chapter of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), has dismissed speculations that the State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, would soon defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC) like his counterpart in Cross River State that defected recently.

The state chapter of the PDP in a statement it issued yesterday described Emmanuel as a leader with towering record of integrity and performance, who is very committed and dutiful leader of the party in Akwa Ibom State.

The statement, which was signed by the State Chapter’s Publicity Secretary, Mr. Borono Bassey, also insisted that Emmanuel’s support base across all strata of the party is unshakeable.

It said: “We cannot conceive the faintest of reasons Governor Emmanuel would contemplate any form of movement from the PDP whose values and ideological leaning resonates with his total development and leadership agenda; let alone to a party like the APC, a party synonymous with retrogression.

“What is clear, however, from these rumours is that the APC is desirous of having the focused, visionary and performing Chief Executive of Akwa Ibom State to cross over to their sinking boat, perhaps in the hope that his arrival could be the salvation that has for so long eluded them.

“Our party, the PDP, does not have even the miniscule sympathy for the APC in this shattered dream as our governor and leader of our party cannot in all good conscience, plunge our state into the impending retrogression that awaits any state that affiliates directly with the APC.

“The fact that this propaganda is making its way into the public domain at a time when Emmanuel is busy inaugurating life-touching projects around the state as part of his pursuit of the Completion Agenda and to mark the 6th anniversary of his outstanding leadership in Akwa Ibom State equally speaks to the ill motive of its purveyors.

“As a party, we reiterate that no performing PDP governor would leave our party to join a party that has visited untold hardship on Nigerians.

“We urge our people to disregard such rumours or at best regard them as the manifestations of the thought process results of people who do not wish Akwa Ibom State well.

“Akwa Ibom State, under the leadership of Governor Udom Emmanuel, is marching forward with the PDP and no form of hallucinations from men of the broom-wielding coven can change this resolve,” the statement said.