Gombe APC chieftain Barde, defects to PDP
Chima Azubuike, Gombe
Former Gubernatorial aspirant of the All Progressives Congress APC, Muhammad Barde, on Monday, defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), adding that bad governance is the sole reason of his defection.
Barde was first runner to the the current governor Muhammadu Yahaya, during the 2018 APC primary election, he was said to have played pivotal role in the 2019 general election which favoured his former party.
He revealed that he has since defected since February 2021, when he failed to revalidate his membership with the governing party.
Barde said, “I have formally come to pay my respect to our great party, I left APC when the party asked it members to go through revalidation exercise and must re-registered and eventually I took the membership of the party PDP on February 2nd 2021.
“I’m not leaving APC for any reason other than because of bad governance, particularly we are all witnesses to the fact that what we are witnessing is a government of a person by a person for a person not government of the people for the people and by the people.
“At the appropriate time we will tell indigenes of Gombe State, that self aggrandising and accumulation of wealth by one individual can not solve our problem and we are prepared to protect our common wealth.”
Barde lamented the consistent interference by the current administration in the traditional institution, referring the government’s utterance as callous.
“This administration has engaged in callous statement, which goes as far as inciting unrest in the state; from Tangale Waja to Dukku and Yalmatu Deba LGA’s we are all one people in this state. We are interwoven, inter-related.
“Leadership is a sacred trust by our forefathers that trust must be carried along and must be protected if need be at whatever cost. So that our children and the next generation will carry on the trust to the on children.
“When you have government inciting violence that doesn’t care about development of the youth that doesn’t give opportunity to women and girls. When you have a leadership that thrives on threats. Our answer to them is clear PDP will form government in 2023.
“Our traditional institution is sacred and we are prepared to protect at all cost and increasing salaries after you have disrespected our traditional rulers what we want is respect for our traditional institutions that have established these Emirates,” Barde said.
Commenting on the decay in healthcare services in the state, he noted that the mortality rate is on the increase in the state, linking poor budgetary allocation in feeding students to poor academic performance.
He added, “The maternal and infant mortality rate in the state speaks volume, the rate of our infrastructure in the state particularly in the healthcare as well as other social services.
“Education for example we have 42 secondary schools in Gombe State, with 16, 411 students the state government only spends N49,916m to feed them for a whole year that means the state government spends only N8 or 2 naira 70kobo for 3 square meal is unacceptable.
“How can anything good come out of our education system. How do you expect the state government to paint buildings and expect that is infrastructure and our social infrastructure has crumbled in this state.”
Also speaking, Chairman of the party, Maj. Gen. Abnor Kwaskebe (retd.), said the Peoples Democratic Party is working assiduously to retain power from the governing All Progressives Congress.
He said, “PDP is on the match, he is one out of many coming to the PDP because PDP is Gombe State and Gombe state is PDP. If you make a mistake without correcting it that means you have been defeated but if you make a mistake and you work relentlessly to correct it then you are out to win.
“We have realised our shortcomings and we have corrected it and our people are coming back home. So he is one out of many on their way and we are going to formalize their return.
“Already PDP in Gombe State has a formidable structure at the ward, zonal, state levels. We are working in synergy with our sister states in order to form the required strength for us to succeed come 2023.”