No fewer than 15,000 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) across the 16 local government councils of Kwara State at the weekend dumped the party for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The defectors, according to THISDAY checks, were also made up of members of the Muhammed Dele Belgore's group, Bankole Association, Golden Youths of Kwara, Agbaji and Ode Alausa Maje Ko Baje group, among others.

The defection of the affected PDP members to the APC might not be unconnected with the current rocking the party over the choice of a governorship candidate in next year's general election in the state.

Receiving the PDP defectors into the APC at his Ilofa Government Reserved Area (GRA) country home in Ilorin, the state capital, the leader of the APC in the state and senator representing Kwara central senatorial district in the National Assembly, Senator Bukola Saraki, called on the people of the state to mobilise themselves and vote for the APC in the forthcoming general election.

He said the people of Kwara State remained the only people that can decide for Kwarans and not anyone from outside the state.

Saraki also noted that all members of APC must join hands to ensure more victory for the party.

According to him, "those who decided to remain in PDP in the state are only doing that for their personal interest.

"Since inception, I have seen the hand writing on the wall that the present PDP administration in Abuja does not have the interest of Kwarans at heart, as no single project was brought to the state by the government in power and none was inaugurated during this period".

He noted that after 2011, all those coming today, showing interest in governing the state ran away to different parts of the world and left their people, but because the elections are near they all ran back to reap where they did not sow".

He advised the new entrants into the APC to ensure that they join hands with them to return APC government in the state and change the PDP in Abuja to APC for better economic prosperity.

In his address of welcome, the state chairman of the APC, Alhaji Ishola Balogun Fulani, commended the initiative of the decampees who decided to come at this particular period.

He said it was the tradition of the party that those who decamped are received publicly.

He assured them of equal treatment with their counterparts in the APC as all of them were now members of one indivisible APC.

In his remark, one of the leaders of the decampees from PDP Okere, Alhaji Baba Jimoh, said all of them were cajoled to join the PDP, adding that they had just discovered that it is not a good place for them.