Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, on Friday took a subtle swipe at the PDP when he stated that he was in the “wrong party” during his time in the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP)
Akpabio also maintained that he found his political home after defecting to the All Progressives Congress.
The senate president made these claims during the inauguration of access roads to the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates in the Karsana District of the Federal Capital Territory to mark President Bola Tinubu’s third year in office.
In response to Federal Capital Territory Minister Nyesom Wike’s description of him as a “uncommon performer” while he was a member of the PDP, Akpabio asked members of the APC National Working Committee to ignore the remark, citing a time before the APC was established.
“Please ignore the comment of the honourable minister that I was an uncommon performer in PDP. He is not talking about PDP of today,” Akpabio said.
The Senate President described his political career, stating that prior to the APC’s founding in 2014, he had served as governor of Akwa Ibom State for more than seven years.
“A progressive-minded person like me should belong to a progressive family. And therefore, when APC came to be, I discovered that that was my group, that I was in the wrong party called PDP. So I took my exit early and joined the progressives,” he said.
Akpabio claimed that the PDP had now disintegrated and acknowledged Wike as the opposition party’s “national leader of the winning faction.”
Backstory…
Senate President Godswill Akpabio was a prominent member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for nearly two decades, serving as Governor of Akwa Ibom State between 2007 and 2015 before becoming the Senate Minority Leader.
In August 2018, he defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC), citing the need to align Akwa Ibom with the Federal Government and pursue what he described as progressive politics. Since joining the APC, Akpabio has served as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs and was elected Senate President in 2023.
Meanwhile, Akpabio’s latest remarks comes two days after he took a swipe at the PDP during the inauguration of Akinwumi Ajibola Street in Abuja, where he said he was surprised the opposition party was still in existence and urged Wike to allow it “die.”
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