Defection to APC: PDP warns Akala, Folarin

Femi Makinde, Osogbo

The Peoples Democratic Party has warned a former governor of Oyo State, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, and a former Senate Leader, Senator Teslim Folarin, who defected from the party to the All Progressives Congress, that they will be used and dumped by the APC.

The PDP urged them to return to the party and join other chieftains to rescue Nigeria from the ruling APC.

The PDP said in a statement issued on Sunday by its Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, that the two politicians would not realise their potentials in the APC because the ruling party would never consider them as stakeholders in their party.

The opposition party advised them to emulate former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former Governor Rashidi Ladoja and Prof. Taoheed Adedoja, who left the PDP but returned to the party.

The PDP maintained that many politicians that left the PDP for the APC before 2015 general elections were regretting their actions because the ruling party demeaned them after riding on their support to secure power.

Describing Akala and Folarin as PDP’s gifts to Nigerians, the PDP stressed that Alao-Akala and Folarin had nothing to gain from the “fast sinking ship of the APC,” saying the APC would celebrate defectors but would later dump them.

The PDP said, “It is a political miscalculation if our respected leaders are going to where they do not belong and cannot learn from the experiences of ex-governor Rasheed Ladoja, Prof. Taoheed Adedoja and the other APC bigwigs in Oyo State, who recently retraced their steps back to the PDP after being used and dumped by  the APC.

“Going by the experiences of many political heavyweights that have left its fold to join the APC in the past, Akala and Folarin’s decision to join the party is nothing but a misstep, especially now that majority of Nigerians are waiting on the party to rescue them from the national calamity owing to the lack of capacity by the Federal Government to deal with the myriad of challenges facing the country.”

Copyright PUNCH.

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