Former presidential adviser and a prominent member of the national ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC), Okoi Obono-Obla, has asserted that the indiscriminate acceptance of defectors from other opposition parties constitutes a significant error.

In recent months, there has been a surge of defectors joining the APC, particularly from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In a statement over the weekend, Obono-Obla voiced concerns that the new members, who lack a solid understanding of the foundational principles that established the APC, are likely to create ongoing conflicts within the party.

He stated that by welcoming a large number of defectors, the APC has marginalised loyal founding members who made considerable sacrifices to unite the legacy parties in 2013.

These same latecomers stand at the forefront of efforts to fracture the party.

“Their maneuvers, though unsuccessful thus far, underscore a deeper identity crisis within the APC.

“Since assuming power in 2015, the APC has made the costly error of embracing every Tom, Dick, and Harry, often at the expense of its founding ideals.

In doing so, the party has sidelined loyal foundation members who sacrificed immensely to merge the legacy parties in 2013.

“These individuals, lacking the ideological grounding and battle-worn experience of the legacy party stalwarts, infiltrated the APC following its rise to power,” Obono-Obla stated.

Obono-Obla also discussed the plans of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai to establish a new political party named the All Democratic Alliance (ADA)

He noted that a detailed examination of the ADA’s promoters revealed that they were individuals who became members of the APC between 2014 and 2019, well after the foundational structures of the party had been established. (BusinessDay)