By Ogbonna Casmir, Enugu
As the wave of defection continues in Enugu state over three thousand members of Aku Youth Movement in Igbo-Etiti council who were initially members of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP had defected to the ruling All Progressive Party, APC.
The members who were drawn from the six political wards the community holds out of twenty wards in Igbo-Etiti council staged road show around the community and the council headquarters Saturday, while declared that the interest of the community under the present administration of PDP in the state had been subverted.
A chieftain of APC, and former speaker of Enugu state house of assembly, Rt. Hon. Eugene Odo charged the new member to go for more members stressing that the era of political hooliganism has gone as politics is now knowledge driven.
Odo who blamed the problem in his former political party PDP to impunity and leadership crisis urged the youths of Aku to take advantage of its population, intellectual capacity as the only town in the state that parades over 40 academic professors in various fields of life and get what they want.
He said because the intellectuals left politics for uneducated to decide the future “for all of us that is why Nigerians are suffering today”.
The former speaker advised members of the party who doesn’t have permanent voters card to seize the opportunity now the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is registering new members to register and get their voters card, as it is their bargaining power.
The leader of the AYM, Dr. Uche Olenyi had earlier in his speech warned members of APC in Aku not to abuse the state governor or political appointees from the area but should propagate the ideology of APC to the people.
Olenyi said political democracy is driven by ideology not the political bickering and antagonism we practices in Nigeria.
A former chieftain of PDP, Chineme Agu who defected to APC disclosed that before December anybody remaining in PDP would be seen as an pariah, as APC has come to restore the dignity of Aku people.
He chairman of APC in the Igbo-Etiti council area, Barr. Best Aroh told the new members that APC is not a party that shares money rather a party that wants to save the poor masses.
