By Nsan Ndoma-Neji, Calabar
A political heavy weight and chieftain of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr. Francis Effiom, has defected alongside hundreds of his supporters to All Progressives Congress, APC, in Calabar Municipal Local Government Area of Cross River State.
The politician claimed that his movement to the APC is for value addition and not to struggle for the structure with party men already on ground.
Those who defected alongside the former PDP leader in ward 8, Calabar Municipal to the APC include, the ward 8 chairman, Mr. Bernard Iso, and hundred others, saying they joined the APC based on the kind of development which Governor Bassett Otu had brought to their ward.
Effiom said, “This decision is predicated on what is so obvious.The governor of Cross River State,, Prince Bassey Otu has shown capacity and willingness to touch the lives of the people.
“I am talking about my own ward, Ward 8, Ikot Ansa, Calabar Municipal Local Government Area.
“Within the first one year that Senator Otu became a governor, he had fixed two major roads in my community.
“One is the road leading to the highway through zone 6 to NNPC depot, to port side via the Industrial Park, where you have bulk of the tank farms in Calabar.
“That road used to be almost unaccessible, until Prince Otu became governor.
“Today if you drive through that road, it has become a dual carriage way from Murtala Mohammed Highway to the Calabar River where it terminates.
“On the Eastern flank of our community, the Ndidem Usang Iso Boulevard, where the road began, starting from our community. The first phase of the road, Prince Otu has just commissioned that road, despite being in office for only one year.
“Our local community road at AsimIitah Street, that had was abandoned for some decades, Prince Otu had fixed it.
“At that point what else can we do? Even though we refused to allow him win in our ward in the last last elections, “but we in the PDP sat down and said, it will be unfair for us not to give him the votes in the subsequent elections, that is what has informed our decision to move enmass from the PDP to APC.
“We have not come to contest the local offices with our brothers who had been on ground all this while.
“We are only coming to add value, use our relationship and connections with people we know at the state and national level to attract better things to our community and ward.
“We are not coming to struggle ward structure, no that is not what we are looking for.”
Advising his supporters who are yet to make up their minds about quitting the PDP for their new party, Effiom said, “If we who are the pillars of the PDP up to the ward leader, Ntufam Bernard Iso, myself, the ward chairman of PDP Francis Asi, the entire ward structure of PDP have moved today into the APC, every other person should just flow inside.
“Let me guarantee you that no other party will be mentioned in this ward in the next coming elections.
“After all, we are the ones that held this political ward tight for the PDP, now that we have moved to the APC, automatically the ward is now an APC ward.”*
