PDP has disappointed South-East –Okorocha

Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State on Thursday said his decision to pitch tent with All Progressive Congress was because the Peoples Democratic Party, of which he was a founding member, had disappointed the people of the South-East geo-political zone and Nigerians.
The governor, who spoke to journalists at the Government House in Owerri on state and national issues, said he had nothing against President Goodluck Jonathan but his party, the PDP.
“There is the need for a better change, Nigerians are tired of Peoples Democratic Party, which is no longer what it used to be after failing to address the needs of Nigerians,” he said.
While declaring his interest and support for the merger and APC, Okorocha described the political party as a child of necessity capable of providing the much-needed change in the South-East region.
He promised to win the South-East zone for APC, saying the party would be good for democracy as well as for the Nigerian people.
He said APC would promote internal democracy since it did not support imposition of candidates.
According to him, if the country must have all-round development at the state and local government levels, people of the rural community must be allowed to partake in decisions on the affairs that concern them.
To this end, he proposed Community Government Council as the way forward.
Okorocha said, “Although the introduction of CGC in the state has received criticisms and lots of challenges, yet it has not deterred the rescue mission administration from carrying out plans already set out for success of the new government.”
According to him, the CGC is the pivot upon which the wheels of rescue mission rotate.
Okorocha said the government is on course to deliver democracy dividends to the people of the state as promised during election.
He cited the achievements of his government, which include 305 school projects ongoing in the electoral wards; 27 general hospital projects; 1000 kilometreskm of roads and dualisation of Anara-Okigwe and Airport roads in Owerri and Owerri- Orlu roads, as evidence of democratic performance.
But Plateau State Governor, Jonah David Jang, has dismissed all efforts aimed at forming any coalition against the PDP.
He described the APC as a body “full of people whose ideas are at crossroads with one another.”
The governor said PDP remained the party to beat and “the only and right Party” to take Nigeria to greater heights.
He stated this in Abuja on Thursday after he was readmitted into the party’s Board of Trustees, alongside 18 other members as permanent members..
Jang sad, “It is only PDP that will take the country to a true, reliable and virile democracy, where service delivery would be its fulcrum.”
Similarly, human rights activist and Chairman, Egalitarian Mission of Africa, Mr. Kayode Ajulo, also described the formation of the APC as a “marriage of strange bedfellows”, which would definitely fail.
Ajulo, in an interview with journalists in Akure, alleged that the interest of the promoters of the merger was not broad-based.
He said, “They were in the merger only to wrestle power from the incumbent President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, and return it to the North.
“No merger has succeeded in the history of Nigerian politics because the past exercises were not based on ideology; they were meant to pursue a specific agenda at a particular time but fizzled away whenever it was not realisable.”
He said the fact that the current effort was not targeted at achieving a common goal made it more complicated. He, therefore, predicted that it would not last.
He recalled the proposed effort made during preparation for the last presidential election that produced Jonathan.
Ajulo said attempts made by the Congress for Political Change and the Action Congress of Nigeria failed because of individual interests.