APC no threat in Delta – Ex-speaker

A former Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Hon Martin Okonta, on Tuesday said the All Progressives Congress posed no threat in the oil-rich Niger Delta State.
Okonta made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja amid ongoing defection of members of the ruling PDP to the principal opposition party, the All Progressives Party.
NAN recalls that last month, 37 members of the House of Representatives left the PDP and joined the APC.
The defectors were from Kano, Sokoto, Bauchi, Kwara, Rivers, Katsina and Adamawa States.
Five PDP governors from Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa, Rivers, and Kwara States have also joined the APC.
” APC is going to collapse like a pack of cards, PDP will have their way,” Okonta, who is still a member of the DSHA, told NAN.
He said: “All those decampees will come back because by the time they share positions, they will find out that what they are looking for does not exist.
“It (APC) has no base, no chairman, no local government, they don’t own any structure in Delta State.
“We don’t have them in the House of Assembly, we don’t have them in the House of Representatives, we don’t have them as chairman of council.
“For you to win in any election, you need to have a political structure, you need to have the unit, the ward, the chairman, the assembly, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
“If those essential ingredients do not exist, do you win from the moon?
“How will APC think they will win in Delta when they don’t have a chairman of a party from any area?”
The lawmaker commended President Goodluck Jonathan for being tolerant to divergent political opinions compared with past presidents of the country.
Okonta added: “He is a President who has allowed every facet of people to air their views.
“He is not gagging anybody.
“He is the only President who has allowed true democracy.
“Here is a humble, loyal, sincere and faithful President who wants democracy to thrive.”
Okonta advised Nigerians to reject violence in the build up to the 2015 general election and urged politicians to place the unity of the country above selfish interests.