Barely two weeks to the governorship election, the former Director-General of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Gbenga Elegbeleye, has defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Elegbeleye, who was a member of the House of Representatives on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), decamped with his supporters.
He told journalists in Akure that an “army of occupants,” who has made it difficult for the PDP to play its role as the mainstream opposition party, was controlling the political association.
Among those that defected with him were the former Chairman of Akoko South East Local Council, Mr. Ojo Victor, former Senior Special Assistant to Governors Olusegun Agagu and Olusegun Mimiko, Mr. Muyiwa Asagunla and two former members of the state House of Assembly, Mr. Thompson Otito Atikase and Adeniyi Akindele.
Akindele said he had tendered his resignation from the PDP to the ward chairman in Ayetoro Ward 3.
The former lawmaker, who represented the constituency in 2007 to 2015, said he took the decision to quit the party because of its lack of cohesion.
Elegbeleye, who was a governorship aspirant in the PDP, said he dumped the party to support the APC’s candidate, Rotimi Akeredolu.
He added that the PDP’s crisis at the state and national levels might make it difficult for it to win the governorship election.
According to him, the APC’s candidate was the best among the 28 governorship candidates participating in the polls.
He explained that Akeredolu’s stewardship as the state Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice in 1992 and as President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) attested to his quality.
Elegbeleye expressed the hope that Akeredolu would fulfill his promise of constructing the road to Ikare-Akoko, which Mimiko had failed to do.
He added that the entire Ikare communities were bereft of infrastructure unlike their counterparts in other zones of the state.
