A stalwart of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and former Minister of State, Mines and Steel Development, Dr Uche Sampson Ogah, has ruled out defecting to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Abia State.
This is against the backdrop of the recent purported suspension of the ex-minister from his party by the leadership of a faction of APC in Abia State, chaired by Kingsley Ononogbu, and backed by the 2023 governorship candidate of the party, Ikechi Emenike.
Ogah, an ex-Abia governorship candidate of the APC, in a statement on Wednesday, said he would rather quit partisan politics than to support PDP in the state.
He regretted that successive administrations of PDP in Abia State had impoverished the people and destroyed the state’s economy.
His words: “How can I support PDP? Am I mad? It’s only a mad man that can support PDP in Abia.
There is nothing that will make me support PDP, instead, I will leave politics.
“PDP is just a group of people that put themselves together to impoverish the people, to destroy the economy of the state, to destroy the future of the unborn generation. There is nothing that will make me support such a group of people.”
He also spoke on his endorsement of the Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate instead of the candidate of his party at the concluded March 18 governorship election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
He said: “I told my political structure, Abia Rejoice Movement, to go ahead and support him (Alex Otti). He is the candidate that can take care of Abia.
“Ikechi Emenike was not a candidate because he didn’t come to contest the election [and] he cannot win his polling unit.”
He said further: “In 2019, I told Abians that if you cannot vote for Buhari, don’t vote for me; I stood and campaigned for Buhari. Did Ikechi Emenike campaign for Bola Tinubu for one day? Did he ever mention Tinubu’s name anywhere?
“So, we’re going to write our own letter to the President-elect and tell him how much he collected from PDP to destroy APC in Abia State.”