Deji Aboderin who served as the Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to former governor, Abiola Ajimobi, has dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Aboderin who was also the candidate of the APC for the Ibadan Southeast/Northeast Federal House of Representatives in Oyo State during the 2019 general election cited many cases where the APC party leadership worked against his electoral victory in the last election.
Addressing a press conference on the development on Sunday, Aboderin said he waited this long to assess the performance of the Governor Seyi Makinde-led PDP administration before taking the plunge.
Noting he had consulted widely with his leaders at the ward and local government level, the ex-aide of Ajimobi said he was only going to the PDP as a forerunner ahead of some other aggrieved members who he claimed will switch allegiance soon.
According to Aboderin, those claiming to be Lamist in the APC are always the problem as they will never see others as true and genuine members of the party.
This, he said, will always make them to frustrate genuine intentions of those contributing to the progress of the party.
Aboderin said: “I have consulted my constituency, I have consulted my local government, I have also consulted my supporters. As far as I am concerned, if this young Governor Seyi Makinde is doing well, he has done somethings within a year and there are ongoing projects still coming.
“I believe in humanity, I believe in people, I believe people should be empowered, I believe in free education that the governor has done and still doing I believe strongly in education which he is pumping money into at the moment and from that,after all the consultations with my constituency, I thereby defect to the PDP from today.”
Justifying his decision to defect at a time the APC was beginning the reconcilliation process, he said: “I will say this to you,I’ll go back to when I ran for an election under the APC as the the Federal House of Representatives candidate, I had issues because of this same problem going on within the APC.
“When I won’t the ticket to represent my constituency Ibadan Northeast/Southeast local government, I had issues with the Secretary of the party and the state chairman who never wanted me to be the candidate of the party and they vowed that they will make sure that I didn’t win the election because they have the son of their godfather,who put them in the position that they had agreement with to support.
“Then on the election day, I could see what they did to my vote by working against me, whereas all of us as party members including the party Chairman and secretary were supposed to work together for all the candidates but they worked against me and I have evidences to prove that.
“Aside from that, during the election, I was leading up till the midnight and I got a call from someone that they werre beginning to void my votes and taking out from my votes for no reason.
“Then I called my lawyer and after the election we saw that there were some foul plays in the calculations and we were planning to do further investigation when we got a call from the party leadership for a meeting of those of us who lost and they said we should not go to court that the party would go to court.
“In order words, they are supposed to include all of us in the suit and I had to step down my lawyers for the party decision.
“Not until a day to the deadline for the submission of petitions that I called the party leadership that I hadn’t been consulted and they said they were on it. Only for me to find out later that the party secretary removed my name from those going to court, while it was already too late for me to make any case.
“It was just only my name that was removed for no reason. I called my lawyers to see what we could do on my own but it was already too late because the deadline for the submission of the names had lapsed.
All my efforts to reach the party leaders proved abortive as they all kept ignoring my calls and eventually when I saw the Secretary, he couldn’t give me any tangible reason.
“So, for me it shows that there was a conspiracy from day one for me to lose that election and if I am going to win it through the court, they already perfected their plans.
“I would have gone before the APC reconciliation committee of only the present governor is not doing well. I am still a youth and we have gotten a youth in power. We have gotten someone who is doing well,what’s the point of going agants a governor that is doing well because of my selfish interest?”
“What matters now tomme is to support any individual or any governor thanks doing what should be done and loved by his people and also doing well in terms of governance of his people.”
He said his supporters and party leaders are supporting his decision to defect to the PDP because Governor Makinde is doing well in office
