Niger PDP tackles APC, says party recycling defectors

Barely 48 hours after the All Progressives Congress claimed over 34,000 members of the Peoples Democratic Party decamped to the ruling party, the leadership of PDP on Monday said it is a recycling of former decampees.

Addressing a news conference in Minna, the state Chairman of the PDP, Barrister Tanko Beji, said the APC is not sincere and that they went about “recycling people” to show that they had gained more converts to their fold.

He added that the APC’s claim at the “Unity Rally” which held last Saturday about the crowd at the trade fair complex where the rally was held was not up to the figure bandied.

Beji said: “it was sad that those that joined the APC way back in 2015 and were unveiled at the Idris Legbo kutigi international conference centre that year were still paraded as new decampees.

“I don’t believe 35,000 people defected that day.

“You couldn’t have had 35,000 at that Trade Fair Complex.

“The crowd there was not more than 10,000.

“Some of them were even rented.”

Beji specifically singled out the former deputy chairman of the party from among those that defected, saying: “We expected this to happen.

“He was discovered to be a mole.

“That is why we suspended him from our party

“We did a house clearing we saw him as a mole.

“He was more of a liability than asset

“Anybody who stands for nothing can fall for anything.”

Beji added that some of those that defected “have no principles, they are in politics because of what they can get.

“They cannot withstand the heat.”

The PDP chieftain who declared that the state working committee of the party was intact contrary to the claim by the APC, said: “Our party is intact our party is waxing stronger and stronger.”

However the All Progressives Congress also on Monday insisted that 34,838 PDP members defected to the APC.

It said: “We did not present 34,000 people on the stage last Saturday.”

The party Secretary, Alhaji Mohammad Liman, said: “Those you saw were high profile defectors, some local governments have 2000 defectors.”