A former Imo State governor, Emeka Ihedioha, on Thursday, said the exodus of members from the Imo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the wake of his departure from the party was a vote of confidence in his leadership.
Ihedioha, who disclosed this during an interview session on Arise News Channel’s programme ‘PrimeTime’, monitored by our correspondent, noted that he left the PDP because of his large followership’s desire for him to lead a change and rebuild Imo State.
He added that Nigerians no longer perceive the PDP as a party that could take over government at the national or state levels, stressing that operators of the party were recalcitrant and averse to reasoning with opinions that will put the party back on track.
Speaking on his exit from PDP, Ihedioha said: “It was bound to happen. So far the tendencies operating in the party remained there, for quite some time, the warning shots were very clear, just before the election, yes there were issues, but it makes sense that we get into the election convinced to regain power at the federal level and a number of states. But of course, several things happened, and after the elections, the issues came to the fore.
“We called for the need to address those issues, but rather than address those issues and a barrage of demands, what we saw was a further drift to the desires of the people, which is very inconsistent with the mission and vision of the founding fathers of our party, which I would say, I had the privilege of being a founding member right back in 1998, then in my capacity as the director of the publicity of PDP. To see your party grow and now get to this descent, and continue on that path of an undesirable descent, might derail you as a person and then the intention and of course your large followership. So, I acted essentially based on the desires of my large followership and my support base back at home and nationally who felt the party had lost its bearing and there is a need for us to forge ahead.
“PDP had stopped presenting itself as a party that could eventually form government by their recent actions. It was obvious that Nigerians no longer perceive them as a party that could take over government at the national or state levels, politics is perception. In the last governorship election in the state, which was our most dismal, PDP did not win one single LGA in Imo State; when I ran for office in 2019, we didn’t have one single member in the House of Assembly, but I led the party to victory, we won 13 seats in the Assembly and won the governorship election with close to 100,000 votes difference with the major opponent. In 2023, we saw abysmal performance and nothing was being done to remedy the situation of the party.”
The former deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives argued that operators of the party were recalcitrant and averse to reasoning with opinions that will put the party back on track.
He further stated, “After I resigned, there is a spontaneous deluge of people who are successful in different ways, who are political leaders across 305 political wards, 4,800 chapters in the political party resigned en masse, I couldn’t have paid for that, it is a vote of confidence in me and our desire to get democracy to work and get a platform that can bring like-minds together to pursue progress.”
He added that those who left the party included a former governor, deputy governors, former ministers, members of the House of Representatives, senatorial candidates in the last elections, a member of PDP BoT, and several others who are politically active.
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