About 3000 members of the All Progressives Change (APC) in Kwara state have left the party and joined the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The decampees gave the internal wrangling among their leaders and lack of unity of purpose amongst them as reasons for their action.
Receiving the defectors in Ilorin, the state capital, the national leader of the PDP and President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki has assured Kwarans that a new administration under the PDP in 2019 will benefit them than the incumbent APC.
Saraki, while addressing the former APC members said the PDP remains the only hope for true representation of the people of Kwara at the federal level.
He assured them that unlike his former association with the APC, he was sure of the people leading the PDP now as well as its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar whom he noted has great plans for the state.
"There is no Kwaran in the APC who has sufficient clout to influence issues for Kwara at the federal level, he said, warning that it would be a great mistake for anyone in the state to trust the ruling federal party."
The Senate President also asked the new returnees to see themselves as part and parcel of his political structure and challenged them to go out and bring others like them whom he noted have been well deceived by the APC.
The decampees were drawn from various areas of Kwara central senatorial district.
In a swift reaction, the All Progressive Congress (APC) said Saraki's recognition of thousands in APC is a sign of ominous defeat.
According to a statement by the party signed by Kayode Oyin-Zubair, their attention was drawn to a purported defection of thousands of APC members to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) reported on the twitter handle of the embattled Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, last weekend.
"Beside the fact that, the amorphous personalities that defected to the PDP were not shown — either in a video or photograph, the inauspicious defeat causing our dear brother insomina might be leading to delusion."
"We must remind the outgoing Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki and his lackeys that every product has an expiry date, therefore; jaundiced rule, high handedness in power, corruption and the likes will take flight from this state through the ballot box in 2019 relying on the collective will of our people and the Almighty God," Oyin-Zubair said.
