Oyo PDP defectors can’t add value to party again —Chieftain

FOLLOWING the defection of some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State, a chieftain of PDP, Alhaji Adebisi Olopoenia, has said that the defectors add no value to the PDP again.

Olopoenia challenged the state governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, to test the political worth of the defectors by visiting their respective local governments to ascertain their worth.

Olopoenia, who stated this while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune at the weekend, revealed that only the former governor of the state, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, who is still politically relevant, was not a member of PDP, having decamped to Labour Party in 2014. “So, the former governor joined APC from Labour Party,” he said.

According to him, “although no party wants to lose its members to the opposition at any point in time, when it happens, such party would take its stock. Those who went to Mapo to celebrate the 68th birth of Governor Ajimobi claimed that our party is dead, they don’t need to cry that foul. The Saturday’s ceremony ought to have been a function where politicians in the state would rejoice with the governor if it wasn’t tagged as defection show.

“We know ourselves in PDP. Those who sang on Saturday were frustrated and rejected members of the party whose contributions, based on 2015 general elections in the state, affected the fortune of PDP, the likes of Honourable Segun Odebunmi, Senator Teslim Folarin and former chairman of the party, Yinka Taiwo.

“PDP candidate in the last governorship election in the state, Folarin, was able to poll 2,512 votes in Ona Ara Local Government Area and just 31 votes in his polling booth; as against Accord’s 8,888 votes and SDP 7,434; the former party chairman, Yinka Taiwo, polled 1,663 votes in Iseyin Local Government Area as against Accord’s 8,400 votes: So, PDP won’t lose sleep over such people.

“I can tell you that 80 percent of them at the time they were leaving add no value to PDP again.”