Efforts to salvage the Ekiti State chapter of the All Progressives Congress from ruin is now in the offing, as a consummate politician and House of Representatives member in Ekiti State, Hon Opeyemi
Bamidele would tomorrow defect with his teeming party supporters and admirers to APC in Ekiti State.
Bamidele, a leader and sole financier of the Labour Party in Ekiti State would be leading the entire labour Party Structures being chaired by Mr Akin Omole and party executive wholesomely to APC, with sole intention to reenergize the party and make it an unstoppable formidable force that could wrestle power from the Peoples Democratic Party in 2018.
Bamidele, a renowned progressive politician of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu political dynasty and staunch member of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria defected to Labour Party in 2013, following irreconcilable differences with the immediate past Governor Kayode Fayemi over who flies the party’s flag for the highly pulsating June 21 governorship poll.
The protracted crisis cost the APC the victory, as Mr Ayo Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party roundly trounced Fayemi in all the 16 Local Governments, which actually propelled the party leaders to reach out to defected members, including Bamidele on the need to return to the party and redirect it from the brink of collapse.
A statement in Ado Ekiti by Bamidele’s Media Aide, Ahmed Salami revealed that the LP’s State Working Committee met in Ado Ekiti on Monday, where unanimous decision was taken on the need to return to the APC in view of the level of political exigency of the moment, particularly the dwindling fortunes of the party in the State .
Salami said those that partook in the historic decision included the members of the SWC, all the 16 Chairmen of the Local Government Areas, the 177 Ward Chairmen, three senatorial, six House of Representatives, 26 State House of Assembly candidates in the last general elections and the topmost hierarchy of the party, which is the Party’s elders Forum.
He said the party would meet tomorrow, Tuesday May 19, to ratify the decision taken after which a press conference would be addressed by the party leadership, which signals the official dissolution of the entire LP structures in Ekiti into APC.
Salami hinted that the defection is with no ulterior motive, but with the sole intention of coalescing efforts with the progressive leadership in Nigeria under the Buhari/Osinbajo presidency in building a nation that every citizen can be proud of.
The Bamidele’s media aide assured the people of the State that his principal would work assiduously to ensure that Ekiti rejoins the progressive at the centre in the next election in 2018.
Salami added that Ekiti cannot afford to stand at the periphery of the national political structure now that the progressives had taken over at the centre, having deeply imbibed the doctrine of progressive ideology that was pioneered by the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Salami stated that Bamidele charged the APC family in the State to continue to forge ahead in unity and desist from any sordid act that could further prolong this eclipse that is casting a shadow on the glowing flame of the party.
He pledged that his principal would serve the party with the same strength and vigour he deployed in the 2011 general elections and during the long and tortuous struggle that brought about the reclamation of the State from the PDP.
