Over 5000 members of Kogi State’s ruling All Progressives Congress have defected to the Peoples Democratic Party.
On Sunday, APC members defected to the PDP in Avrugo and a neighbouring ward in Kogi State’s Igalamela/Odolu Local Government Area.
Honourable Collins Adama, the former vice chairman of the LGA who led other party members to defect to the PDP, said the APC had failed Nigerians.
According to him, it was time for Nigerians to vote out bad leadership in the 2023 general election, emphasising that any mistakes made now would spell doom for the country.
Adamu commended the leadership style of the stakeholders of the local government and praised the state and national level of the leading opposition party for electing candidates that can deliver dividend of democracy to all nooks and crannies of the nation.
The defectors were received into the PDP family by Igalamela/Odolu Local Government PDP Chairman, Honourable Attai Salifu and the party’s state assembly candidate, Honourable Zakito Umar, who said the ruling APC should be ready to pack their load from both Kogi State and at the national level.
Salifu in his address admonished other wards and polling units in the local government to emulate what was happening in Avurgo, adding that the PDP would win the 2023 general election.
On his part, the former executive chairman of the local government, who doubles as the state assembly candidate, Umar, said when he was in power, his administration executed nine physical infrastructural projects in Avrugo ward.
He listed some of the physical infrastructural projects to include construction of bridges, culvert , boreholes, primary health care centres and recreational centres across the length and breath of the ward.
If elected into the Kogi State House of Assembly, Umar promised to give the people effective and people oriented representation.
The women leader of the local government, Honourable Mary Atebije, described Umar as a man of competence and capacity adding that he was an administrator per excellence. She urged the electorates to believe in him because he has been tested and trusted in the local government.