One of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Chris Ekpenyong has lamented the recent wave of defection of by the party’s bigwigs to the ruling All Progressives Congress.
It would recalled that reports that the defection of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State, his deputy, Sir Monday Onyeme and his predecessor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa to the APC has continued to unsettle the main opposition party.
In an interview with Vanguard on Saturday, Ekpenyong, who served as Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State from 1999 to 2007, predicted that his state governor Umo Eno may soon join the ruling party.
According to him, PDP may find it difficult to rise again, lamenting that President Bola Tinubu has captured the opposition party.
He blamed the move by some PDP governors to dump the party and support Tinubu in the coming election on the decision of the former vice president Atiku Abubakar to contest again on the party’s platform.
He said, “Tinubu has killed the PDP. I’m sure Akwa Ibom may follow soon. Everybody wanted former VP Atiku to clearly state that he wasn’t going to contest, but his persistence has forced people to make their own decisions.
“This is dividing the North and the South. What do we do now? The party has been destroyed. I honestly don’t know how they can rebuild it to challenge the APC in the future.
“The people we could talk to are no longer interested. The first mistake PDP made was handing over the party to the governors.
“That was the mistake founding fathers like Obasanjo made. Obasanjo seized the party. The only ones who stood up to him were the late Chief Sunday Awoniyi and former Vice President Alex Ekwueme”.
