From Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
With less than a month to the general elections, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Gombe State has taken another hit as key party officials and government appointees switched their allegiance to the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP).
The party officials and members in Billiri and Shongom Local Government Areas (LGA) of the state dumped the APC to support Khamisu Ahmad Mailantarki, the gubernatorial, and other candidates of the NNPP.
The defectors who were received and welcomed into the NNPP by Mailantarki, include the Serving Secretary of the APC in Shongom LGA, Mr Nelson Bagudu, a Special Assistant to the state governor, Jesse Dereba Maipundi, a legislative aide to the Senator representing Gombe South zone, Engr Mela Lasoru Ibn Lele and Hon Alhassan Musa Aliyu.
The recent defection from the APC came barely nine days after the former Commissioner of Youths and Sports Development, Hon Julius Ishaya Lepes and the member representing Kaltungo West constituency decamped from the APC and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the NNPP.
Speaking on behalf of defectors, Bagudu said, they dumped the ruling APC because of leadership failure and the inability of the APC government to ward off insecurity and economic challenges affecting residents of the state.
According to him, the APC-led government in the state lacks administrative principles and policies that would usher in democratic dividends to rural dwellers to alleviate their plights and bring purposeful governance to the state.
He called on all right-thinking people in the state who are in APC and PDP to return to the NNPP as APC and PDP have failed the people.
Speaking shortly after receiving the defectors, Mailantarki, assured that he would restore security and revamp small and medium enterprises in the state within his first 100 days in office.
