Defection: I Left PDP Because I Was Expelled, Akpabio Tells Court

Former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, yesterday told a Federal High Court, Abuja that he moved to the All Progressives Congress (APC) because the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) expelled him from the party.
While urging the court to dismiss the suit filed last year by the Legal Defence and Assistant Project (LEDAP) seeking to declare the seat of Akpabio and 54 other national lawmakers vacant over their defection from one political party to the other in 2018, the former governor said the PDP in his ward suspended him, after which he was expelled from the party at the local government level.
Speaking through his counsel, Sunday Ameh (SAN), the Senator representing Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District at the Senate said the date of the two incidences, in exhibits A and B, was July and August 2019.
“When juxtaposed with the calendar for the primary elections as issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the intention of the PDP then, was to render him fait accompli and to deny him a platform to contest the election, as his nomination must come from the ward up”, Ameh told the court.
The senior counsel said Akpabio, who is the 3rd defendant in the suit filed by LEDAP was thrown out of the PDP at a very crucial moment in a political arrangement towards 2019 general election.
“In order not to fall prey of the gang-up, calculated at turning him into political orphan and preventing him from participating in the 2019 general, “He has to take advantage of his constitutional right under Section 40 of the constitution to join the APC that was willing to accept him after his party has thrown  him out”.
Ameh told the court what the PDP did to Akpabio was an uncommon situation and that is why he seeks a constitutional remedy.
He said if Akpabio’s action was not correct, the PDP would have applied to be joined in the matter to say that the 3rd defendant willingly left the party and urged the court to dismiss the suit for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
Earlier in his oral submission, counsel to the plaintiff, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN) insisted that there was no division to warrant the defendants’ defection, adding also that the further counter affidavit deposed to personally shows that defendants have admitted that there was no division in their parties.
Okutepa, while urging the court to discountenance the arguments of Akpabio’s counsel said, “When you have a petty local quarrel within your political party at the ward level, it does not give you an unbridled license to join another political party.