Chief Jim Nwobodo, a former minister of sports and governor of the old Anambra State, has declared that his decision to join the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not for power play but to team up with progressive political forces for the betterment of Enugu State and Nigeria.
Nwobodo gave the assurance while reacting to insinuations that some APC members in Enugu State were uncomfortable with his admission into the party.
“Chief Nwobodo has left PDP to join APC, strictly on principle and for the good of his people. He hasn’t joined to take anybody’s place or lord it over anybody”, the former Sports minister said in a statement issued through his media consultant, Mr. Nwobodo Onyekwere.
“There is no need for anybody or group already in the party to feel unsafe or threatened by his entry, as everybody’s preoccupation should be repositioning of the party in the state for greater goals and/or results,” he added.
The former Senator and presidential aspirant on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), said the growing fears that his admission into APC could spell doom for the party, especially at the state level, was unfounded.
“If indeed there were any such dissenting voices at that gathering, such disgruntled person(s) ought to be openly and easily identified. As all neutral witnesses would bear out, the whole duration of the occasion was devoid of any untoward or unsavoury incidents.
The front line political leader, also disclosed that the APC leadership in Enugu State had said that measures are being taken to bring to book, persons found to be responsible for the ‘false’ insinuations that his membership was not welcomed by some sections of the party in the state.
According to him, “Those involved in this treachery know themselves and are also aware they have been unmasked”.
“Our nation needs peace, justice and progress,” he added.
It would be recalled that, while announcing his defection to the APC in Enugu on Friday, Nwobodo had said the development was informed by a desire to move Enugu State into the mainstream at the federal level. He also argued that it was not good to be in the opposition.
“I want our people to be part of the Federal Government at the centre. I had a problem being an opposition governor. I am not coming into APC because I want anything. I want our people to be re-integrated and have our own share of the Federal Government resources,” Nwobodo said.
He equally attacked his former party, the PDP, blaming its leadership for the implosion, especially its decision to allow five governors to leave for the APC in the build up to the 2015 general elections.
Nwobodo disclosed that even when he was in PDP, his heart was also in APC as his wife-Patricia, had been an active member of the party since inception.
In another curious twist, barely 24 hours after he defected from the PDP to the APC, Nwobodo also performed religious switch, by defecting from the Anglican church where he born and raised his kids to the Catholic church, where he re-married his wife, Patricia, in a wedding which held at the Bishop’s Court, in Enugu.
By Olisemeka Obeche