A chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Gombe State, North-East Nigeria, Dr. Jamil Isyaku Gwamna, has defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) along with his supporters.
Dr. Gwamna made the announcement of his defection to journalists in Gombe, citing internal crisis, poor leadership, disregard for rule of law within the PDP, as well as disunity as reasons for his decision to dump the party.
He said the leadership of the PDP in the state had poorly managed affairs, which led to different factions within it.
The PDP has been in an internal crisis over party leadership: The presidential candidate, Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Governor Wike of Rivers state, Southern Nigeria, have had opposing views with Gov. Wike calling for the removal of the party’s National Chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu.
According to Wike, there is the need for the South to produce the party’s next national chairman.
Against this background, Dr. Gwamna said his political ideology was anchored on unity, inclusiveness, fairness and justice and that since they were not found in the party, he had no reason to stay.
“In politics, internal democracy is very key and if you cannot find that playing out, then practising democracy on a larger platform such as governing the state becomes a big issue,” said Dr. Gwamna.
He said that the All Progressives Congress was more organized in Gombe state than any political party and was managing its affairs in a more family-like manner.
He called on his supporters to mobilize grassroots support across the state to ensure that the APC retained the state with a better voting margin than that of 2019.
