Amaechi, Nyako, Other Defectors Won’t Return To PDP, APC Tells Jonathan

The All Progressives Congress has asked President Goodluck Jonathan and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party not to expect back in their fold members, who defected from the PDP to the APC.

The party said this in response to an ultimatum given by the president to members of the ruling party, who defected to the opposition party to return or lose their seniority privileges.

Jonathan at a sensitization/grand rally organized by the Imo PDP in Owerri on Saturday told the defectors, “We have opened the door for a few days. You join us these few days, the position you occupy is the position any other person will occupy. No discrimination.

“But if you don’t come and come later, you will queue behind your ward assistant chairman”, he added.

In response, the APC, through its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed described the president’s comments as an embarrassing joke.

“I read the President’s statement where he said if they don’t come back, they will lose all the privileges they used to enjoy. Forgetting the fact that in these states, the governors have not only come over to the APC, they came with the entire members of their Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly.

“Does he not understand that these people have crossed the bridge of no return? What will happen if in a few days time they don’t return? Why does the President want to ridicule himself? Supposing after one or two weeks they don’t return what is going to happen? He will have diminished his value”.

Speaking in the same vein, one of the defectors, Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State said it was too late in the day to ask him or any of his colleagues to return to the ruling PDP.

Nyako, who made this known through his Director of Press and Public Affairs, Ahmad Sajoh, said, “We have left the PDP and there is no going back. It is not an issue of giving people ultimatums; we cannot be part of the PDP as it is presently constituted. We are comfortable where we are”.