About 106 members of the Action Democratic Party have defected to the Peoples Democratic Party in Edo State.
The ADP members from Egor, Ovia South West, and Ovia North East Local Government Areas of Edo defected ahead of the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
The governorship poll in Edo is scheduled for September 19 with Governor Godwin Obaseki, who is the PDP candidate, slugging it out with the All Progressives Congress’ standard bearer, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
Edo State Organising Secretary of the ADP, Oshodin Izedomwen, while leading the defectors on Tuesday in Benin, said that their defection was part of their belief in the capacity of the PDP.
Izedomwen said he was a founding member of the PDP and that he left the party because of some persons, whom he described as “strange bedfellows” who came to join the party.
He stressed that they had all now returned to the PDP because the “strange bedfellows had since left the party.
“In politics, interest matters because it is always the driving force.”
Edo State Chairman of the PDP, Tony Aziegbemi, who received the defectors from ADP, described the action of the new party members and their leader as a homecoming.
Aziegbemi assured the defectors that they would be integrated into the PDP to contribute to the success of the party in the state.
Governor Obaseki had on June 19 defected from the APC to PDP following his disqualification by the APC from contesting its governorship primary election.
But on June 25, Obaseki got the governorship ticket of the PDP, after three other aspirants stepped down for him.