The victory recorded by General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the recently concluded election in Nigeria has resulted in mass defection into the APC in some areas of the country.
For example, in Benue State where the APC won two senatorial seats and a number of seats in the House of Representatives, three top members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have led hundreds of their supporters and party members to the APC, many of them publicly destroying their membership cards.
At a reception in Naka, headquarters of Gwer-West in the state, top members of the PDP, former council chairmen in the state as well as aides to incumbent Governor Gabriel Suswam, declared for the APC.
Some of the defectors, including two former chairmen were Abaji Godfrey Ichoghol; Andrew Ayande, a former Adviser to Governor Moses Adasu and current Senior Special Assistant to Governor Gabriel Suswam; Mr. Francis Nyibiam, as well as his colleague, Anta Igbaato.
An ex-Youth Director for the Governor Gabriel Suswam Campaign Organisation, Chief John Akperashi Gum, would be defecting to the APC on April 7 while the APC in the state says is is making plans to receive former Minister of Justice, Mike Aondoakaa (SAN), Deputy Governor of Benue State, Chief Steven Lawani, and Emmanuel Udende, a PDP member-elect of the House of Representatives for the Ukum, Katsina-Ala and Logo Federal Constituency.
Akperashi has withdrawn all his campaign vehicles from the PDP Campaign Organisation and rebranded them with the campaign pictures of General Buhari and Chief Ortom, the APC governorship candidate in the state and formally donated them to the Ortom/Abounu Campaign Organisation.
Meanwhile, a PDP chieftain in the State was beaten and stripped naked by angry PDP members in the state for campaigning for the governorship candidate of the APC in the 11th April election.
The incident happened at a birthday thanksgiving service of Solomon Wombo, a PDP member and Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, held at the Akume Atongo stadium in Kastina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State resulting in pandemonium.
Akor Ikyegh, a relation to the wife of the celebrant, a former Youth Leader in Ushongo Local Government Area and personal aide to Prof. Daniel Iornem, a member of the Suswam Campaign Organisation, was said to have been caught distributing handbills of Samuel Ortom, the governorship candidate of the APC.
It was learnt that irate youths at the event which had Governor Suswam and other PDP chieftains in attendance, descended on Ikyegh after they found a teenager distributing handbills with Ortom’s message titled: ‘Rotation of governorship position among Benue churches: The time for the Pentecostal.’
While beating the unnamed youth, he confessed that the handbills were given to him by Akor Ikyegh.
They then searched for Ikyegh, beat him mercilessly before finally stripping him of his clothes. He was saved from death by men of the Nigeria Police as well as other security agents at the event.
