By Ruth Oginyi
About 5,000 members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ebonyi State have defected to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, vowing to deliver all PDP candidates including the state governor, Engr. David Umahi in the forthcoming general elections.
This is even as Governor Umahi has challenged his opponents in the governorship election to declare their health status to the people to know if they are ready to lead the state.
The governor spoke on Friday at Ikwo Local Government Area of the state when Umahi flagged off his 2019 governorship campaign ahead of the elections.
He appealed to party faithful and the people of the state to massively vote for PDP candidates from Presidential to the State House of Assembly elections.
Umahi, who boasted that his challengers were merely wasting their time, urged electorate to be at their polling units as early as 6am on March 2nd governorship election and to wait after casting their vote to ensure the election is not rigged.
The governor revealed at the campaign flag-off that supporters of the oppositions parties are working with him as they always come back to brief him after their routine midnight meetings on how to rig the election.
He stressed that nobody can rig election in Ebonyi because the people will resist such plan and announced that PDP In the state will commence house to house campaign on Sunday and warned party faithful against anti party activities ahead of the exercise.
Also speaking at the rally, the State Deputy Governor, Dr. Kelechi Igwe, disclosed that the new defectors have donated a brand new Sienna bus to Governor Umahi in support of his re-election campaign.
A leader of the decampees and former APC senatorial candidate for Ebonyi Central in the 2015 general election, Mr Vincent Anyigor, said they were more than 5000 APC members from the LGA that defected to PDP.
Anyigor declared that, “We were deceived not to support Governor David Umahi in 2015 that he is a thief but if this is how a thief behaves, we want to have more of him.”
He assured the governor that they would join hands to ensure he and other PDP candidates secured 100 percent votes in the council area.
An elated Governor Umahi who was pleased with the defection, immediately appointed one of the defectors, Mr Friday Ilang, as his Technical Assistant.
