A former Minister of Education, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, has said he is leaving the Peoples Democratic Party with his supporters to join the Social Democratic Party. Adeniran also said Prof. Jerry Gana had agreed to join him in the SDP. Both Adeniran and Gana were members of the Board of Trustees of the PDP before the defection to the SDP. While Adeniran was a chairmanship candidate in the December 9 national convention of the PDP, Gana was one of his staunch supporters.
Adeniran has refused to identify with the PDP since he lost the election. Speaking with Punch in Abuja on Saturday, Adeniran said he decided to leave the PDP because of impunity and imposition of candidates. Adeniran said, “I have left the PDP for the SDP with my supporters. I left because there is no internal democracy in the PDP. It may interest you to know that Prof. Jerry Gana has also left the PDP”.
Asked if Gana would fly the presidential ticket of the SDP in 2019 as being speculated, Adeniran said, “Whoever will be the presidential candidate will emerge from our convention”. On whether he could realise his chairmanship ambition in his new party, Adeniran said he was not nursing such an ambition. In his reaction, the National Chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus, described the defection of Adeniran as painful.
He said Adeniran remained one the founding fathers of the party adding that he had expected him to join hands with him and other leaders of the party to rebuild it in order to be able to wrest power from the ruling All Progressives Congress.
