A two-time member of the House of Representatives (Etsako federal constituency), Alhaji Abubakar Momoh has given reasons for his dumping of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Momoh who was the PDP Edo North senatorial candidate in the 2019 elections said that his decision to quit the party and return to his former party, the APC which he was a founding member was a painful one but was done at the instance of his teeming supporters.
In his letter of resignation sent to the PDP chairman in Ward 9, Etsako East to formally announce his disengagement, the former member of the Edo State House of Assembly (Etsako East), unequivocally stated that his decision was irreversible even though he had to do so with “a deep feeling of pain”.
Momoh’s defection is largely seen as a huge political set back to PDP in Edo North, where he remained its main leading light.
Against the backdrop of the controversial manner in which he lost the zone’s senatorial election and coupled with the fact that the engineer turned politician still commands huge political clout in the district, he said leaving the PDP is no doubt a great loss to a party still trying to find its feet in Edo State political firmament.
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Continuing, Momoh remarked that after the 2019 general elections, the party has been in “a state of anomie and lack of direction”, adding that such a state of things cannot “in any way keep or retain a serious stakeholder like him.”
Momoh wrote that he had been under intense pressure from diverse groups, significant community leaders of thought, political associates and many of his teeming followers, who insisted on some form of the realignment of forces with his former party, APC.
Not oblivious of the fact that his defection will attract mixed reactions across the entire senatorial district, the politician was however predicted that in the not too distant future, many would come around to applaud his decision.
Recalling some of the ugly experiences he had to contend with whilst in the PDP, he narrated how he was betrayed and left in the lurch by those he trusted, who was supposed to serve as his witnesses in the legal battle to retrieve his mandate.
He wailed: “They were compromised and abandoned the struggle whereas no APC witness compromised in the face of similar temptations.”
Having suffered so much in the hands of the party leadership, Momoh said he had no more reason to tarry a little bit because doing so would be “tantamount to drowning his political boat in the ocean of a political party that no longer has the zeal to win elections in Edo state”.
He, however, had words of appreciation for the serious-minded members of the PDP who worked very hard during the last elections and appealed to them not to be disappointed as he takes his exit, reiterating that his decision to move on is in the large interest of everyone.
NOTE: This article was first published December, 19, 2019.
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