Over 200 ex-Oyo councillors defect from APM to APC

More than 200 former councillors and their supporters have defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), now the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State, pledging to mobilise voters for the victory of all APC candidates in the 2027 elections.

The defectors were received by the party’s leadership and chieftains, including the state chairman, Otunba Moses Alake Adeyemo, and former Senate Leader and Coordinator of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Teslim Folarin, among others, at the party secretariat in Oke-Ado, Ibadan, on Tuesday.

Speaking on behalf of the defectors, their leader, Hon. Muili Kazeem Arowodana, said their decision to leave the ruling APM followed years of alleged maltreatment, deprivation and dehumanisation under Governor Seyi Makinde’s administration.

He described Makinde as a difficult person to work with in politics and public administration.

“We are here at the APC secretariat in Oyo State this afternoon to formalise our status as new members of the progressive family.

“There is no gainsaying the fact that we have wasted many years in Governor Seyi Makinde’s Omititun camp, where we have been made to suffer untold hardship, dehumanisation and deprivation.

“We served for three years without anything to show for it in terms of individual gains or the delivery of the dividends of democracy to our people at the grassroots.

“Allocations to our respective local government councils were hijacked and diverted by the governor and his cronies under the Joint Account operation, while we were paid meagre salaries without any allowances.

“None of us could attract meaningful projects to our constituencies because the governor alone made decisions on project awards, the choice of contractors and costs. Incidentally, this situation persists in our dear state because the same corrupt leader remains in office.

“Governor Makinde has deliberately withheld our severance packages, leaving many of our colleagues in financial distress. We have lost some of our colleagues to death because they could not afford to treat even minor illnesses.

“To make matters worse, the governor has put forward a man who shares his ideology as his likely successor, but this will not happen.

“We have a far better candidate in Senator Sarafadeen Alli, and we have resolved to work for him and other APC candidates going forward,” Arowodana said.