EXPLOSIVE: Ikimi is defecting into the lion’s den – APC

The Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress on Wednesday described the exit of a former leader of the party, Chief Tom Ikimi, as a “defection into the lion’s den.”The state’s Publicity Secretary, Godwin Erahon, who made this known in Benin, said the party was waiting carefully for the next political move of Ikimi before responding to the issues he gave for leaving the APC, adding that his exit had given the party an avenue to re-strategise at the local level in order to win the forth-coming elections.

Erahon said, “For now the state chapter will not want to comment in details on the decision of Chief Tom Ikimi to leave us.

“At the appropriate time when he settles down in the PDP where he is obviously going, we will have time to respond to some of his outbursts.

“We saw a lot of claims and counter-claims in the letter he wrote; we will address them in due time.

“We wish him well wherever he is going, but we sympathise with him because if he said he is running away from crocodile in APC, he is running into the lion’s den.”

He also said Ikimi’s exit from the party was a good omen for better things to come in the APC, noting that the APC would defeat the opposition party at the former party leader’s local government.

He said, “Even now in Igueben the member representing Igueben in the state house of assembly is from the PDP, which means while he was with us he lost his local government to PDP and therefore we cannot lose more than that now that he is gone.

“We are also hoping that with his exit the party will be better organised at his local level and by the next election, we are going to be able to defeat the PDP in that constituency and that tells you that we don’t believe that we have lost anything substantial or meaningful.

“We see it as a good omen. In every system God will always help those who mean well. We pray that whoever that will constitute obstacle to victory in the 2015 presidential election that God will push him or her out.

“All of them who want to leave, we wish them well.”

He, however, assured party members that the achievements of the APC in the state in the last six years would not be jeopardised by the defection of some members to the opposition.