Giant Strides: More Rivers Politicians To Join PDP

As Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike prepares to receive The Authority Newspaper’s ‘Man of the Year 2016’ Award, tomorrow, and ‘The Sun Governor of the Year 2016 Award’ scheduled for next month, there are strong indications that more politicians in the state are set to defect to the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State.
The expected harvest of defections is coming after the recent decamping of Chief Kassidy Ikegbidi, a chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) and former chairman of Ahoada East Local Government Council, to the ruling PDP.
A PDP chieftain boasted to The Tide in an interview in Port Harcourt, last Monday, that among those ready to defect to the PDP include 13 former commissioners, 17 former local government council chairmen who served in the immediate past administration of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in the state.
He further claimed that on the line to decamp to the PDP are seven prominent politicians who were board members; two former board chairmen, and a former chairman of the opposition party in Rivers State.
It would be recalled that on the occasion of Ikegbidi’s defection to PDP in Ahoada, recently, the membership of the All Progressives Congress in Ahoada East Local Government Area virtually emptied into the PDP.
The Tide check revealed that the increasing number of defections of politicians from the APC to the PDP in Rivers State is being inspired by the disunity in the APC in the state and Governor Nyesom Wike’s superlative performance when other governors are overwhelmed by the emergent recession in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State Governor, will tomorrow receive The Authority Newspaper’s ‘Man of the Year 2016’ Award to add to the litany of the governor’s achievements in less than two years in office in Rivers State.
The award is in addition to others by The Sun Group of Newspapers, Daily Independent Newspapers and other rating organisations for his aggressive infrastructural development and inclusive people-oriented administration in the state.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana