A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Kingsley Wenenda Wali, has called on the leaders of the party in the state to put their house in order ahead of the 2023 elections.
He said it is imperative to carry out a self-audit to find out the real cause of the mass defection of its members into the PDP in the past few months.
Recall that many chieftains of the party in the state, including its spokesperson Chris Finebone, Senator Magnus Abe, Dawari George, Ibim Semenitari, Tonye Princewill, among others had dumped the APC to other parties.
In an interview with LEADERSHIP in Port Harcourt, Wali said although the ruling party has internal crisis, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has bigger problems to tackle.
According to him, “APC has problem, but PDP has the worst problem. Look at the national and at the state levels, there is so much bitterness in the system.
“If you have a situation where a state government is commissioning projects, hosting members of the opposition with fanfare, then, something is very wrong with the system.
“I don’t know whether it is the governor’s fault or the party’s fault, but something is wrong. In APC, we have not gotten to that point where our presidential candidate is having problem with one or two governors of his party.”
Wali, who is also the national leader of Unity House Foundation (UHF) stated that the leadership of the party in the state has come to terms with reality that those who had left have gone, and put things together to make sure that it is better structured for the 2023 general elections.
He said, “Let me quickly admit that one, a couple of people have left the party for the political party in power. These are people who are members of a family but at some point in time, they now felt that they were no longer stakeholders and they didn’t believe that the system was accommodating them enough.
“So, they had to seek for greener pastures. I will not deny them that right and I will be the last person to criticize a man for making a choice because whatever the consequences of that choice are, it is going to deal with them.
“What am I trying to say here; adults sat down, took decisions and moved on. And they left adults behind.
“So, what is needed of the All Progressives Congress now is to sit down and do some kind of audit; to ask themselves, why did these guys leave? It is no longer they shouldn’t leave; it should be why did they leave? You tell yourselves the truth. When you come to the truth, then, you will find solutions to them.
“That is why I said the APC has to come to terms with reality and having addressed those realities of people who have left and why they left, and its effects on the party decide to put things together to make sure that the party is better structured to confront the 2023 election.”
