Setback for APC as Orji Kalu’s loyalist, Nkire defects to PDP

The prospects of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abia State were beclouded, yesterday, after a former member of the party’s Board of Trustees, Chief Sam Nkire, formally declared for the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

In a statement in Umuahia, Chief Nkire said he decided to join forces with the PDP both at the state and federal levels in the next general elections because he was convinced that Nigerians wanted the party back to serve them better.

Nkire was also the deputy national chairman, South of the splinter group in the APC, Reformed All Progressives Congress, R-APC and before then national chairman of the Progressives Peoples Alliance, PPA, the political party inspired by a former governor of the state, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu.

Nkire also said that after all said and done, he had no regrets leaving the APC for the R-APC, and now the PDP, adding that it was regrettable to note that the APC had left the country worse than it met it.

The former member of the APC’s Board of Trustees, therefore, used the opportunity to ask all his loyalists, followers and associates who had been asking him for political direction, especially in Abia State, to follow him to the PDP.

According to the former national chairman of the PPA, the PDP is the only hope Nigeria has to solve the numerous security, economic and political problems bedeviling the country today. Chief Sam Nkire who was until recently the Caucus Leader of the APC in Abia State confessed that he would surely miss his brothers, associates, and friends who may choose to remain but added that “brothers will always be brothers no matter what party they belonged.”

He said he was sure that the PDP had learned from its past mistakes and appealed to every Nigerian of voting age who is yet to get a voter’s card to endeavour to get one.

The former APC chieftain particularly appealed to all former members of the PDP and the PPA who followed him to the APC to join him in PDP, assuring them that “PDP is now a new, reformed and restructured party ready to serve Nigerians better.”