From Priscilla Ediare, Ado Ekiti
A group of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), youths, PDP Youths Congress (PDPYC) has described the treatment meted out to the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Chief Godswill Akpabio, by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State, as the beginning of his reward for political harlotry and betrayer of the PDP, a party that gave him everything politically.
On Saturday, angry protesters drawn from the faction loyal to Senator Akpabio had protested at the All Progressives Congress (APC)secretariat in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, seeking the cancellation of the ward congress exercise. They accused the National Caretaker Secretary, Senator John Udoedehe, of “fraudulently manipulating the lists to include only his loyalists as candidates for the wards and chapter congresses.”
Reacting, the PDPYC said ‘it was shameful that Senator Akpabio, who, while in PDP, was a highly respected politician but today, is crying over APC ward congress like a rat being pursued by a hungry cat. Shameful!’
In a statement issued in Abuja on Monday by the PDPYC Director of Communications and Mobilisation, Akpan Ibor, the youths said: ‘More humiliations still await Akpabio in APC, unless he retraced his steps to the PDP and apologise to the party members and supporters.
‘What happened to Senator Godswill Akpabio is the beginning of the humiliation he will suffer in the APC. More will still come because, by 2023, he won’t be able to field himself and any of his loyalists as candidates in APC.
‘Imagine Akpabio, having to organise protest and set bonfire at APC secretariat in Uyo over ward congress. Isn’t it shameful?
‘That is what you get when you engage yourself in political harlotry, moving from your own political mansion to become a tenant in other people’s political boys quarter.
‘If he had not decamped to APC out of political greed, Akpabio would still have remained in the Senate as the Minority Leader, a position that is more honourable than that of Minister of Niger Delta Affairs that he is holding now.
‘As for us in the PDPYC, we don’t pity Akpabio and his likes. We only hope that others will learn from the political misfortune that is befalling him in APC.’