PPA condemns defection rally for Orji

OWERRI— The Progressive Peoples’ Alliance has noted with nausea the call for the Governor of Abia State, Theodore Orji, to leave his party by a few people who ordinarily have no business in a progressive party.

In a statement in Owerri by Mr. Ben Onyechere, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, the party said: “It is on the other hand unexpected from those quarters who are core PDP chieftains who now want to cry more than the bereaved.

“It is part of politics to seek attention of an incumbent, particularly when you want money and contract from him, but what is not tolerable is when you disparage his platform in order to satisfy your selfish intentions. So those people are saying that they can deliver T.A Orji for second term and as such he should come out of PPA.

“Where were they when the election was won.  Couldn’t they have delivered themselves when it mattered most?  That the party invited its Governor for a chat on the way forward is not enough reason to hire a crowd pretending to support Orji who, of course, was not even around to listen to rusty voices of crocodile tears.

“The party has found out, just like every Abian, that the PDP-controlled federal government is bent on marginalizing Igbo for which reason they will not do federal roads in Abia as an oil producing state, they are over deducting Abia debts which were incurred during Mbakwes’ era.

“Why the federal government cannot grant a debt relief to Abia as a reprieve for enhanced development is a disease that has lived with Igbo since after the war. “President Jonathan who is from a neighboring state is expected to come to the aid of Igbo because we have suffered for too long and bring the amnesty programme to bear in Abia as well as advice his do or die party men in Abia who are encouraging kidnapping among their kinsmen from Ngwa and neighboring Delta states to refrain from such practices.”