By Lagos gubernatorial hopeful, Babatunde Gbadamosi has dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He announced the development known in a statement shared on his Facebook page on Friday.
Gbadamosi was the governorship candidate of the Action Democratic Party (ADP) in the 2019 elections. After rejoining the PDP, he became the party’s candidate in the October 2020 Lagos-East Senatorial District bye-election, but lost to Tokunbo Abiru of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In the statement, the politician blamed the stakeholders of the PDP for his defeat at the Lagos East Senatorial bye-elections, accusing them of working against the party.
“We were handicapped by a glaring lack of support from the highest levels of the party, with only one out of 16 PDP governors identifying with us, barely 24 hours to the elections. As I had come to expect in the last week of the campaign, certain members of the party executive, at the behest of a man now known to be a double agent for Tinubu, turned against us on election Day and we did quite poorly,” he said.
“I came to recognise that the problems of PDP run quite deep, and their tepid opposition to the inept, incompetent, corrupt and reckless APC government is in fact by design of some unscrupulous individuals populating the party leadership from top to bottom.”
According to Gbadamosi, the emergence of Peter Obi and Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the Labour Party (LP) rekindled his “lost hope in Nigeria”.
He added, “These two share a passion for education and knowledge, with Obi’s documented exploits in the education sector as Governor of Anambra State, and Baba-Ahmed’s direct investment in education as Pro-Chancellor of the highly respected Baze University, Abuja. Both share a disdain for graft and believe in exterminating contract padding – the bane of Nigeria.
“I find myself left with no choice, when faced with the alternatives, but to publicly throw in my lot with these two fine gentlemen, especially considering that another good Uncle of mine, Dr. Doyin Okupe is one of the navigators of their journey and had invited me very much earlier.
“I hereby publicly declare my resignation from the PDP and wish all the remaining members well. By the same token, I also hereby publicly declare my support for the Labour Party and all its Presidential Candidate, Mr. Peter Obi.”
It would be recalled that Gbadamosi recently asked Lagosians to buy the LP gubernatorial nomination forms for him, ahead of the 2023 polls.
