“I don't see any way it has affected the party negatively and the issue there is that President Muhammadu Buhari will win this election come 2019,” Okorocha said. “He is much stronger on ground. It is allowed [the multiple defections] and as they are going, many people are still coming into the party in their thousands. It is neither here nor there, and we shouldn't make a big issue out of it.”
Rochas Okorocha, Governor of Imo State, says the exit of Senate President Bukola Saraki from the All Progressives Congress (APC) should not be made a big issue.
Okorocha, who was speaking with journalists in Abuja ahead of an emergency meeting of the party’s National Executive Council (NEC), also said Saraki’s his exit from the party would not affect the re-election chances of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“I don't see any way it has affected the party negatively and the issue there is that President Muhammadu Buhari will win this election come 2019,” Okorocha said.
“He is much stronger on ground. It is allowed [the multiple defections] and as they are going, many people are still coming into the party in their thousands. It is neither here nor there, and we shouldn't make a big issue out of it.”
Okorocha added that Saraki is entitled to determining his own political future.
“I wish him good luck,” he said. “The Governor of Kwara my colleague leaves, good luck too. They are all responsible men.”
With Saraki’s defection to the PDP, the Senate is headed a showdown between APc and PDP lawmakers on which party has control over the upper legislative chamber.