I wanted Buhari to win not Jonathan in 2015-Akpabio

Former Senate minority leader, Godswill Akpabio, has said he never believed in his former party’ds presidential candidate, Goodluck Jonathan but instead supported President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 election.

He disclosed this during a meeting of elders and leaders of Akwa Ibom State with Buhari in Abuja on Monday.

“In 2015, we had a son of the Niger Delta, former President Goodluck Jonathan, contesting the election and I was also a chieftain of the PDP. I was also the Chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum,” Apkabio said

“So, in spite of the fact that I believed strongly that the current president needed to be supported, there was no way I could play anti-party activity in 2015. So, I voted for PDP,” he claimed.

Akpabio, last month defected from the Nigeria opposition party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling  All Progressives Congress (APC).

The two-term governor of Akwa-Ibom under the opposition party said his former party, throughout its 16 years in office at the federal level, did not construct a one-kilometre road project in the state.

He further stated that he was compelled to vote for Jonathan because the former President is from the Niger Delta and he did not want to engage in anti-party activities as a PDP governor and also the chairman of PDP governors’ forum at the time.

The former minority leader claimed he is finally where his soul and spirit belongs since 2015, he could freely express his interest at the 2019 polls without fear or favour.

“But today, I am at liberty to exercise my franchise and that means I am with my body and soul – that is, with my supporters and my family – and as a leader, we are going out there en masse, in our thousands to cast our votes for the president in 2019 and I am saying this with emphasis,” he said.

Akpabio assured Buhari of total support from the people of Akwa Ibom State and affirmed that the State will be first to be won by the APC in the South-south at the forthcoming 2019 general election. He added that Buhari will win the state by a landslide.

“I can predict that the first state in Nigeria to fall to the APC in 2019 presidential election is Akwa Ibom State,” Akpabio said.

“No one can controvert this. l still speak with authority because I have my people’s backing to pronounce what I have just pronounced. Victory is for APC and victory is for Mr President, come 2019 in Akwa Ibom State.”

The former minority leader, therefore, described the current PDP in Akwaibom State as minority party whose body and soul had moved to the APC, disclosing that no fewer than 266,000 persons had also dumped the PDP for APC since his defection.