Chief Ifeanyi Uchendu, representing Ohafia South Constituency in the Abia State House of Assembly on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, on Monday defected to the Peoples Democratic Party.
At a forum for his formal defection at the PDP Secretariat in Umuahia, the lawmaker said that he made consultations with his constituents before taking the decision.
He said: “I consulted with my God, my people and members of my constituency before I took the decision to join PDP.”
The lawmaker said that his action was due to leadership crisis in APGA at the national and Abia State levels as well as in Ohafia.
Uchendu said: “Since the general elections in 2015, APGA has not been functioning.
“It has crisis at the national, state and local government levels.
“There are many factions at all levels, even in my local government area. I do not know where I belong now.”
He said that he joined PDP “because it is united in the state and local government area”.
Uchendu, who defected to APGA in 2015, after losing nomination in PDP, said that he returned with all his supporters.
He promised to give unflinching support to PDP and Abia Gover or Okezie Ikpeazu, who he described as a visionary and hardworking governor.
Receiving Uchendu to PDP, the state Chairman of the party, Chief Johnson Onuigbo, said that the legislator took a wise decision.
Onuigbo expressed joy at the PDP’s victory in the Saturday’s bye-election in Osun West Senatorial District.
He described the bye-election result as an indication that PDP would win general elections the 2019.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Uchendu’s defection came barely two months after another APGA lawmaker in the state, Chief Clinton Ebere, representing Aba South Constituency, defected to PDP.