Billy Graham Abel, Yola
The Adamawa State Governor, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, has described the dumping of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by some members for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the State as a massive endorsement of his administration.
Fintiri said his government has prioritised education and development at the grassroots as a double-edged solution for empowering the common man to compete in life and also as a means to address the insecurity posed by the menace of the criminal gang known as the ‘Shila boys’ that has plagued the residents of the State before his government came into office.
The Governor made the remarks in Yola on Saturday while receiving ex-APC members into the PDP.
‘We have been closing the gap now and bringing into our fold politicians that are relevant to our communities, infantry politicians, who come from the grassroots, who know their people and their people know them,’ Fintiri said.
“Politicians who stay with their people in good times and bad times and these are the kind of people we have here.
‘Because this government has been working to foster development and take infrastructural progress to our rural areas who have been deprived for a very long time.
‘Several politicians from the opposition are here to join us to build the Adamawa of our dreams and this is an endorsement that we are working for the people.
‘Even though the PDP in the State is at its infancy, it is just a year and three months in office, yet thousands are already thronging into our party because of the people-oriented projects we have elected to implement.
‘We are making the difference because, since 2015, no block of the classroom was built by the former government in the state and in a time of a little over a year, we have commenced the renovation and reconstruction of about 5,000 schools in the State.
‘We have lifted the burden off the shoulders of parents in the payment of school fees from primary to secondary school and we have also ensured that parents would no longer grapple with the burden of payment of NECO and WAEC fees.’
Speaking at the occasion, the State Chairman of the PDP, Attahiru Shehu, said that there is little to no opposition in the State.
‘We have today received several former members of the opposition, APC, who have endorsed the amazing work of Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri and have decided to join forces with us to move the state forward, Shehu said.
‘We have received former aspirants and candidates in the opposition party who have crossed over to our party with their supporters.
‘They submitted a list of over a hundred thousand supporters, to whom we will be issuing our membership cards.
‘The number of people here is just representative of the over hundred thousand people that we will be adding to our ranks, but because of the COVID-19 protocols, we cannot have everyone here.
‘This is a massive endorsement of our progress and the direction this development-oriented government is taking the state towards and it shows a vote of confidence in the outstanding work this government is doing to touch the lives of the people of Adamawa State, especially at the grassroots.’
But reacting to the defection claims, the Adamawa State Chairman of the APC, Ibrahim Bilal, said that the APC is regrouping and attracting members from the PDP into the party.
‘The former Governor under the PDP, Bala Ngilari, has dumped the party and joined us and we have several other PDP big wigs also who we will soon announce to the world to show you how untrue their claims are.
‘It is spurious to claim that the last APC government did not build schools after our legislators, several of our key government officials have embarked on rehabilitation and rebuilding of schools across the State,’ he said.