PDP Means Political Annihilation, APGA Tells Gov. Orji

ABUJA, July 25, (THEWILL) - For the first time since he moves to decamp again, the All Progressive Grand Alliance factional National Chairman, Chief Chekwas Okorie today warned the Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji not to succumb to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) overtures, as doing so means his total political annihilation.

According to him; "It is only the politically naive which Dr. T.A. Orji is not that will be lured from APGA which is his natural political habitat to the PDP that is not only potentially hostile to him but infested with political sharks. It is quite easy to see that it will be a political suicide for Governor T.A. Orji to move from a position of absolute liberation and freedom to a position of irredeemable bondage," he declared.

Reports indicate that the governor is torn between deciding whether to jump ship to the PDP from APGA less than a month after he ditched his erstwhile party, the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) for APGA, on the premise that the party is wooing him based on his relationship with the President’s wife, who is said to be mounting pressures to get Orji installed governor in 2011 without any challenge.

But Okorie in a statement in Abuja faulted the move, saying the PDP has become army of blind adventurers. He also declared that the unprecedented visit in the form of courtesy call on the Governor of Abia State was ostensibly aimed at wooing Orji to decamp from APGA to the PDP, which in itself cast a moral burden on the governor.

"We will not have bothered to react to PDP’s political adventurism, but for the misleading and deceitful statements credited to the leader of the group as the raison d’taire for Chief T.A. Orji to join the PDP. To assert that Ndigbo shall be better served politically if all of them coalesced under one big umbrella, smacks of political deceit that can only convince fools which Ndigbo are not.

"This is the eleventh year the PDP has been in control of the Federal Government of Nigeria as well as about 75 percent of Federal and State, Legislative Houses. All through this period the PDP controlled the Governments of the South East zone most of the time. The so-called big umbrella of the PDP is so badly perforated that Ndigbo and indeed Nigerians have been severally drenched with excruciating poverty, joblessness, insecurity, retrogression to primitivity and all manner, of health afflictions," he said.

APGA, Okorie said nonetheless commends the governor for turning down the offer.

"We wish to commend Governor T.A. Orji for his hospitality in receiving his guests and his political savvy in wishing them goodbye with the message that their requests touched on his integrity and would therefore require wide consultation. We dare say he also requires prayers by himself and by all of us, for divine guidance and courage to resist the temptation the PDP overture may present to him," he stated.

The party’s National Leadership led by Chairman, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo had last Friday led a delegation to government house Umuahia to ask the governor to decamp from his new party, APGA to the PDP.