Abia PDP loses former state chairman to APC
From Boniface Okoro, Umuahia
A former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State, Senator Emma Nwaka, has left the party and joined the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Though Nwaka, a former Abia North Senator had refrained from pitching his tent with any political party after dumping PDP, it has now emerged that he is now a full-fleged member of APC, having been formally inducted into the APC family.
Nwaka’s high profile defection is coming six months after he had “quietly resigned” his membership of PDP on June 12, 2024 but later made it public on August 30, 2024.
A political aide of the former PDP Chairman confirmed that his boss has joined APC, said that the photohraph showing Nwaka receiving APC membership card in his Oguduasa Ward 5 was real.
In the photograph, Nwaka is seen being presented with APC party card by the APC Chairman for Oguduasa Ward 5, Chief Sampson Achi Ndukwe, with the APC Chairman for Isuikwuato Local Government, Chief Udochi Okorie, and other party officials, watching.
Emergence of the photograph fuelled speculations about Nwaka’s APC membership.
“The photograph was not AI generated,” the aide said, adding that Nwaka would eventually “bare his mind to the public on this momentous event in the fullness of time.”
Nwaka, was also a governorship aspirant of PDP in the 2023 general election but had to eithdraw due to alleged irregularities in the candidate selection process.
After the party lost the 2023 governorship poll in Abia State to Labour Party, effectively ending its over 20 years control of the state, most of the party chieftains dumped the party, including the immediate past Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Chinedum Orji, who also joined APC.
When Nwaka was in charge or Abia PDP between 2010 and 2015, the party completely dominated the political space in the state by winning all elections from the wards, local governments, the state to federal costituencies and senatorial zones.