The All Progressives Congress (APC) has reacted angrily to the defection of its members in Edo to the Peoples Democratic Party, wishing them and the PDP “failure in their endeavours.”

“We liken the Edo PDP and their new members as figurative jesters, typical of a drowning political party that has lived its life solely on betrayals, falsehood, fraud and propaganda,” said a statement on Saturday by the APC assistant publicity secretary, Victor Osheobo. “We wish them failure in their endeavours.”

The APC added, “The hype of a purported defection of 64 leaders of the party to an unnamed faction of the PDP in the state was as an umbrella of lies emanating from the failed ruling party.”

The APC slammed Governor Godwin Obaseki, Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu, and “the rented chairman of the party, Dr Anthony Aziegbemhin, to be wary of this kind of self-deceit laced with a bogus and unfounded figure of defectors.”

“Ironically, none of the so-called decamped leaders could have mustered any modicum of support from their bases. Their antecedents tally with that of the governor as a serial betrayer and the deputy governor, Mr Shaibu, a prodigal son who regularly and publicly disowns and disgraces his supposed political father,” said the APC statement.

The APC added, “Two of the decampees, like Senator Francis Alimikhena and Mr Lucky James, stood out like sore thumbs. The senator who returns to his vomit in his desperation to return to the Senate, knowing fully well that the position is neither his birthright nor his inheritance, and Mr James, a political trader, whose greed and insatiable appetite for relevance is public knowledge.”

(NAN)