Ex-PDP Chieftain, Olusola Oke, Set To Defect To APC

A former Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is set to dump the party for the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Mr. Oke, who was the PDP governorship candidate in 2012 in Ondo State, confirmed his defection to PREMIUM TIMES in an interview Tuesday.

He said he would formally announce his exit from the ruling party at a press conference in Akure on Wednesday.

Mr. Oke said he concluded plans to defect to the APC after consultations with some prominent politicians and leaders, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo whom he met last weekend.

He said also had discussions with the leadership of the Ondo State chapter of the APC on his plan to join the party.

Mr. Oke resigned his party position to contest the governorship election in 2012 but lost to the incumbent governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko, who then ran on the platform of Labour Party. The governor has since defected to the PDP.

In January 2014, the former legal adviser was appointed Chairman of the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency. However, the 10-member Board was never inaugurated.

Frustration set in for Mr. Oke when Mr. Mimiko dumped the Labour Party for the PDP, which he (Oke) and others laboured to nurture, financially and otherwise.

The governor seized the party structure and sidelined the PDP faithful with little resistance from them partly because of his closeness to President Goodluck Jonathan, who subsequently named him his campaign director for the South West zone.

Apparently because of the governor’s closeness to the president, Mr. Oke reportedly received little or no support from the PDP leadership when he challenged Mr. Mimiko’s victory in court. He eventually lost the case.