On Thursday, March 26, 2015, the Deputy Governor of Ondo State, Ali Olanusi, defected from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the All Progressives Congress, APC.
His decision to decamp from the PDP to APC came as a shock to some political observers in the state, who have keenly followed unfolding political happenings in the state. It would be recalled that in 2014, Olanusi defected from Labour Party to PDP alongside the state governor, Olusegun Mimiko.
However, there have been crisis within the camp of the PDP in Ondo State over the control of the party’s structures in the state. While those who have been in the PDP from scratch want to direct the affairs of the party in Ondo State, the governor, who by virtue of his position, automatically becomes the party leader in the state, also wants to take charge.
Even efforts by the national leadership of the PDP as well as President Goodluck Jonathan to make the warring parties embrace peace did not yield any meaningful result.
Speaking on his defection on Thursday, Olanusi explained that he left the PDP because he needed to “chart a new course for majority of my followers who look up to me for direction and leadership and who have watched helplessly in the last six years, the untold marginalization and total exclusion from the government they laboured to put in place.”
The Deputy Governor made this clarification via a press statement issued on Thursday in Akure, the state capital.
He added that, “While still being in place as the democratically elected Deputy Governor of Ondo State, I have decided to lead my teeming supporters and well wishers in the state into the APC, where we can find justice, fairness, equity and democratic liberty – a party which majority of our kith and kins in Yorubaland belongs.”
Concluding, Olanusi pointed out that, “I have taken this decision at this critical time, in the best interest of peace, stability and good governance of our dear state and for the overall development of the Southwest and the nation.”
