The Kwara governorship candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2011, Dele Belgore, has defected from the APC to the PDP.
Belgore, (SAN), who made the announcement while addressing his supporters named MDB in Ilorin, said that “People have waited for long for the MDB group to make a pronouncement on our political future.
“We are therefore joining the PDP which as fate has it, has shed the very core of the liabilities that made our people run away from it. To our supporters and political independents, APC has let us down. We have therefore decided not to be part of an arrangement being led by the oppressors”, Belgore added.
He assured his supporters that the event was just to announce their determination to go to the PDP, adding that formal declaration would come later.
According to him, the expectations and the anxieties of the people have been dashed by recent happenings in the APC which they laboured to nurture to a party of choice in Kwara from its ACN days.
“An alliance of those who yearn for change and who desire to maintain the status quo of oppression and denial of opportunity was suddenly foisted upon us”, he said.
Belgore said his group rejected alliance of politics of patronage, denial of merit-based opportunity and running the state like personal assets.
He condemned the handing over the party’s structures to new entrants in APC, especially when they are at the commanding hights.
“APC leadership had in seeking to satisfy a few, alienated the rank and file, and to many, the soul of the party. The owner of a home need not be displaced to give any false sense of friendship to a stranger”, he added.
He said that no positive change was possible where the authentic have to coexist with the same elements that the people of Kwara wanted to dislodge.
“We are joining hands with other like minds in the PDP, who were unjustly shut out because of their progressive bent to endear the party to the people of Kwara.
“Together we will work to advocate and bring about economic liberation, equal opportunity for all and positive development to our dear state and its people”, he added.
Belgore declared that his group would join forces to break the shackles of oppression and restore Kwara to its former glory.
He noted that it was not easy to leave the party that he had nurtured to such an enviable position, but said that APC was undemocratic.
Belgore called on his supporters and those who wished Kwara well to support PDP to fight for just and noble cause.
The chieftains of APC who defected with him were Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo and Rev. Bunmi Olusona.
Others included Idris Mahmoud, Dr Sa’ad Omoiya, Isa Afon, Agboola Ismail and Toyin Ayinla.