By valentine Amanze
The Bayelsa State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) has confirmed the defection of its former Chairman, Mr. Tiwei Orunimeghe, to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The state Publicity Secretary, Doifie Buokoribo, who confirmed the story, said that the party wished Orunimeghe well in his new party.
He pointed out that the former chairman was expelled over a year ago for anti-party activities.
His words: “Finally, Mr. Tiwei Orunimeghe, ex-Chairman of our party, who was expelled over a year ago for anti-party activities has made public his membership of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) over the weekend.
“Rather than do it quietly, he did it loudly and even lied against his former party and its leadership.”
He said that it was worrisome for a man who claimed to have brought APC to Bayelsa State to say he left the party for “lack of mission and vision”?
He further queried: “What is the ethical orientation of a man that disagrees with his former principal, benefactor and political leader,
and then turns around to abuse him in public?”
According to him, the APC,
Bayelsa State chapter, stated:
- i) Mr. Orunimighe did not leave APC to join PDP. The party expelled him and his group of renegades over a year ago for anti-party activities;
- ii) The “98 leaders and 5, 000” so-called persons said to have joined the PDP with him are not our members. Maybe they are PDP members joining PDP!;
iii) The Bayelsa State APC is neither a party of cultists nor of people with a violent disposition. We are a party of responsible, patriotic and peace-loving people. We are fully convinced that Bayelsa State can be better than the level of mass poverty, pain and hopelessness that Governor Henry Dickson had reduced it to;
- iv) Mr Orunimighe was a political nobody until the leader of our party, Chief Timipre Sylva, picked him and made him Chairman of Southern Ijaw Local Government Council during his tour of duty as governor of Bayelsa. It was Sylva that also made him Chairman of our party. And Orunimighe today is claiming that Sylva is not a politician;
- v) Like we said in our press statement of 29 July 2018, alerting the public to the event that eventually happened at the weekend in Yenagoa, APC in Bayelsa State remains “intact, united, strong, and focused.”
