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Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the recently concluded election in Nigeria has resulted in mass defection into the All Progressives Congress across the country.
Reports have it that in Benue State where the APC won two senatorial seats and a number of seats in the House of Representatives, three top members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have defected to the APC with hundreds of their supporters and party members. Some of them even tore their PDP membership cards. They included aides to incumbent Governor Gabriel Suswam.
Some of the defectors, including two former chairmen were Abaji Godfrey Ichoghol; Andrew Ayande, a former Adviser to Governor Moses Adasu and current Senior Special Assistant to Governor Gabriel Suswam; Mr. Francis Nyibiam, as well as his colleague, Anta Igbaato.
An ex-Youth Director for the Governor Gabriel Suswam Campaign Organisation, Chief John Akperashi Gum, would be defecting to the APC on April 7 while the APC in the state says is is making plans to receive former Minister of Justice, Mike Aondoakaa (SAN), Deputy Governor of Benue State, Chief Steven Lawani, and Emmanuel Udende, a PDP member-elect of the House of Representatives for the Ukum, Katsina-Ala and Logo Federal Constituency.
In a related development, a PDP chieftain in the state was beaten and stripped naked by angry PDP members in the state for campaigning for the governorship candidate of the APC in the April 11 election.
Akor Ikyegh, a relation to the wife of the celebrant, a former Youth Leader in Ushongo Local Government Area and personal aide to Prof. Daniel Iornem, a member of the Suswam Campaign Organisation, was said to have been caught distributing handbills of Samuel Ortom, the governorship candidate of the APC, at an event.
He was beaten to a pulp and stripped naked him of his clothes. He was saved from death by men of the Nigeria Police as well as other security agents at the event.