National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has expressed shock over the defection of five governors from the party to the opposition All Progressives Congress.

Though Tukur, who spoke from

The governors are those of Sokoto (Aliyu Wamako); Rivers (Rotimi Amaechi); Kano (Musa Kwakwaso); Kwara (Abdulfatah Ahmed); and Adamawa (Murtala Nyako).

The other two members of the group of PDP aggrieved governors, Sule Lamido and Babangida Aliyu of Jigawa and Niger states respectively, said they would still remain in the PDP.

Tukur was quoted to have said that the governors went too far by defecting from a ruling party to the opposition party, especially at a time he said the doors of negotiations and dialogue were kept open by President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of the party.

The national chairman of the party, who is currently in China, said he was in constant touch with the Presidency and party leaders on the development.

He assured party members that the turn of event was normal in democracy, as, according to him, the party leaders would always put heads together to salvage PDP and advance its desire to remain in power.

Tukur said, “There is always a limit to demonstration of anger. If anger can cause you to pack all your bags and loads and then move into the home of your arch opponents, that, to me, is anger so misdirected and it is unfortunate.

“We cannot ask anyone not to leave the party if he so decided. After all soldiers go, soldiers come. If anyone leaves the PDP, many more people will join, it happens over time.

“All the same, I seize this opportunity to say to others who want to remain to stay back and join the process of re-building and reforming PDP.”

He said though the PDP would not take delight in having its key members defect into the opposition party, he however added that those who did so exercised their fundamental right to associate as guaranteed by the law.

The PDP chairman insisted that the turn of events would not halt the ongoing process of reform within the party and the desire by the leadership to entrench party supremacy, discipline and cohesion.

He urged willing members of the G7 and other aggrieved members of PDP to return into the party, as according to him, the party would always be eager to welcome back all returnees into its fold with happiness.

He said, “What we are saying is let us come together as a party to promote the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan who we elected to lead us in Nigeria.

“Let us put behind us those secessions of crises and bickering so that the President and leaders of the party could concentrate on governance and delivery of the dividends of democracy to all.”

Meanwhile, a former Vice President, Atiku Abubarkar, has said that the freedom with which the five governors of the PDP defected to the APC without any persecution from ‘’above” was one of the dividends of the persecution he passed through while in office.

Atiku, who spoke during the public presentation of the book ‘Landmark Constitutional Cases in Nigeira 2004 – 2007: The Atiku Abubakar Cases’, at the Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, listed other gains, which could be attributed to his ordeal as the VP to former President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007, to include the inability of INEC to disqualify candidates duly nominated by political parties.