Jonathan’s close ally defects to APC

Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s close friend, Mr.
Diekivie Ikiogha, has dumped the Peoples Democratic
Party for the All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa
State.
Ikiogha, who is a founding member of the PDP, crossed
over to the APC at an elaborate ceremony held on
Saturday at the Kpansia open field, Yenagoa, the state
capital.
He defected with some other members of the erstwhile
ruling party. Also, members of other political parties,
including the All Progressives Grand Alliance, left with
him for the APC.
Prominent members of the PDP that defected with him
are Mr. Victor Awala, Mr. Paul Ajuwa, Mrs. D. Irene, Mr.
Prince Abeki, a former commissioner, as well as over
150 former councillors from 1999 to 2012.
Besides, no fewer than 43 non-governmental
organisations, under the aegis New Bayelsa Initiative,
also filed out with Ikiogha, whom they described as a
great grass-roots mobiliser.
Ikiogha, a former Bayelsa State Chief of Staff, said to
be a trusted and dependable ally of Governor Seriake
Dickson, is one of the brains behind the emergence of
Dickson as governor in 2012.
But indications of a frosty relationship between Dickson
and Ikiogha emerged when the former removed him
from office in controversial circumstances and
redeployed him to the state’s Abuja Liaison Office.
Ikiogha resigned his appointment in October 2014 to
contest the House of Representatives ticket for the
Yenagoa/Kolokuma/Opokuma Federal Constituency. He,
however, did not get the ticket.
Addressing the crowd that came to witness his formal
movement to the APC, Ikiogha said he decided to quit
the PDP because, according to him, it is a party full of
betrayals and deceits.
He said, “There is lack of internal democracy and it is a
party where the highest bidders always have their way.”
The National Chairman of the party, John Odigie-
Oyegun, who was represented by the National Vice-
Chairman, South-South, Mr. Hilliard Eta, performed the
formal reception as he presented a broom, which is the
symbol of the APC, to Ikiogha.
Odigie-Oyegun noted that the Dickson-led government
of Bayelsa State had received over “N440bn from the
Federal Government with nothing to show for it”, adding
that what was left for Bayelsans was “to retire
Governor Seriake Dickson”.
He, however, declared that the occasion was not meant
to give Ikiogha a governorship ticket to contest the
forthcoming Bayelsa State governorship election but to
formally welcome him into the party.
He added that the process of electing a governorship
flagbearer for the party would be conducted in a
transparent primary election just like the process that
produced Muhammadu Buhari as the party’s
presidential candidate.