A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Oluwole Oke, representing Oriade/Obokun Federal Constituency of Osun State, has said his admiration for President Bola Tinubu’s leadership style contributed significantly to his recent defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Oke said the Asiwaju mentees over the years have done tremendously well and he would love to join the queue.
The lawmaker also lauded the president’s recent Nigeria First Policy and the bold step to revamping the economy by removing the fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira upon his inaguartion on May 29, 2023.
Oke, who also chairs the House Committee on Public Accounts, formally announced his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC on April 23, 2025.
Speaking during an appearance on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM Ilese-Ijebu on Wednesday, May 7, the seasoned lawmaker further cited internal crises and a breakdown in leadership within the PDP as his primary reason for leaving the party he once helped to build.
On Tuesday, May 5, 2025, the political landscape shifted significantly when all members of the Delta State House of Assembly and six federal lawmakers from the state defected to the APC, a move that has been widely described as a devastating blow to the PDP’s standing in the region.
This follows earlier defection of the state Governor Sheriff Oborevwori and former Governor Ifeanyi Okowa from the PDP to the APC.
Oke, however dismissed speculations that his move and similar defections in Delta State were motivated by financial inducements, insisting such claims were unfounded and untrue.
In response to the state of his former party, PDP as an opposition before his defection, Oke said;
In respect to the leadership of PDP as it is today, they have failed totally, to manage that party that we suffered, we labored to build of the years. How did we get there? … We caused it, we were not just being strategic, we didn’t plan, we planned to fail and we failed. I don’t discuss members of my political family, those that we’ve had cause to work together, I don’t discuss them in the public, I’m not trained to do so. But, you know it is very clear that, that party is in the mug. Perhaps, there maybe A miracle. It may wake up in 2028.”
_“I’ll just put it simply that, my former party internal mechanism is not working and the party is fractured. It’s like a divorce. It’s like the marriage. It has broken down, it has become irretrievable. That’s the way I’ll put it”. He said.
Meanwhile, Oke, the six-term legislator stated that his 18 years as a lawmaker have given him deep insight into the inner workings of Nigerian politics, adding that his decision to join the APC was a strategic move to better position himself to deliver dividends of democracy to the people he represents.
While several quarters have labeled him among other recent troupe of defectors unloyal politicians looking for political survival.
He further claimed to have joined the ruling party because, he wants to get his youths in his constituency empowered and to fix infrastructure decaying, stating that these could be seen as good incentives, in place of the acclaimed financial inducements.
The lawmaker was earlier rumored to have been nursing a governorship ambition, however, in a previous press briefing, he cited the need to support a Yoruba President and the refusal of Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, to fix decaying infrastructure in his Federal Constituency made him quit the PDP.
