By Grace Egbo, Abakaliki
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ebonyi State has lost yet another major stakeholder, as former Commissioner for Finance, Barr. Timothy Oda, popularly known as Due Respect, has officially joined the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Oda, who led more than 2,000 supporters to the APC State Secretariat in Abakaliki over the weekend, said his decision to abandon the PDP was driven by Governor Francis Nwifuru’s humility, commitment, and ability to deliver on the needs of the state despite prevailing challenges.
According to him, “Today is the state declaration for APC. They hosted me. I thank you, people who have a lot of… I was in PDP.
“PDP, where I started as a State Financial Secretary, State Legal Adviser, then I had some positions in local government. I worked as a local government partner chairman, down to Commissioner of Culture, Commissioner of Finance, and I was also the National Chairman of Finance Commissioners’ Forum. I worked under Samegu, His Excellency, the former governor then.
“Then I worked under His Excellency Chief Martin Nwancho Elechi. Before I stepped aside, I’ve been in the Kula or Kokum for 12 years. By God’s grace and support, I think this is a clarion call for me to come into the party, and I want to appreciate the governor with all his humility, irrespective of his position.
“He needs me in the party, and the party chairman fought seriously. So I have to agree, I have to accept, I have to volunteer, so whatever it means. I’m coming into the party to join those who are working, for us to work better”.
Oda said there was little difference between the APC and PDP in the state, stressing that both parties emerged from the same political roots.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no difference between APC and PDP, because we’re all coming from the ashes of PDP. We were in one family. The faces are not different, it’s the same people.
“So that’s why this issue of Joyce everywhere that we’ve gotten, we’ve cut somebody, we have won somebody over, it does not, because we are the same. Only thing is that sometime I was abandoned in the mud. The Joyce should be more or less, we’ve recovered the lost ship, one of us.
“And I’m coming with the same approach that the APC must have put areas that would have guaranteed peace. Let’s make a lesson to be peaceful. As I made my statements there, if we pound ourselves to the mud, then cook our soup with our blood, who will eat us? The enemies will eat us.
“There’s nothing we shall have. Let’s win the election without violence, especially in the Igbo land. When everywhere is in crisis, we shouldn’t hate ourselves.
“The party should be known for packaging a peace, harmony, tolerance, empathy and sympathy. As brothers coming together, not just to salvage the interests of party but people from whom and amongst whom we exist. That’s what I believe, sir.”
Receiving the defectors, the APC State Chairman, Chief Stanley Okoro-Emegha, urged members of opposition parties to embrace unity and join the ruling party in order to end political conflicts during elections.
“We can, as brothers and sisters, come together, resolve the issues, advise each other, and then provide solution for a way forward. The important thing is to develop the state. Let our state compete favorably with any other state in the world.
“That is the target of APC. So due respect, coming to join the party was, one, the pleasure, two, he saw reason. Without asking him to come, he had already said, ah me, coming to visit him.
“And the day I went to him, he said he never believed that I would come looking for him. You can’t tell somebody like that, that he is a nobody. He has an advice to give to the governor, he has served as a commissioner in the previous, has been a part of the FAC, he can profile advice, and then that will help the state to grow.
“There is no any way you can say that such a person don’t have an idea to give, so far as FAC meetings are concerned. So as such, he is needed in the running of the state, in advisory role, and in actions. And he is still a young man, that you can call and say we are going to use night bus to go to Abuja, and then he will be there for you.
“So as such, that is why I made it as a point of duty to go all out, to ask him to come in. That is how an organized system functions.”
