By Sunny Nwankwo, Umuahia
There were indications on Sunday the immediate past Abia ommissioner for Information Obinna Oriaku has formally joined the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Oriaku, who served as the Finance Commissioner between 2015-2019, on Saturday announced the decision to dump the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In a letter to the PDP chairman, Mbutu Ukwu Ward 3, Isiala Ngwa South, Owerrinta said he was leaving the PDP because it lacks the basic structural integrity to deliver the much talked about good governance as dividends of democracy to Abians.
Abia indigenes and residents have expressed mixed feeling over his defection.
“You were in this state when Obinna Oriaku was the Finance Commissioner. It was under him that we were made to see the rot and level of corruption and financial misappropriation in Abia Poly.
“It was under Oriaku as Finance Commissioner that ghost workers were fished out. Since Oriaku was unjustly removed from office by powers that be in the state, tell me what you have heard about ghost workers or the rot in the government system where some officials were reportedly paying their family members and deceased pensioners to the detriment of the state.
“Oriaku, as far as we are concerned is the best commissioner of finance that the state has had in a decade. His ousting was a case of corruption fighting back. So, dumping PDP and joining APC is a best decision for him,” Okorie Sylvanus stated.
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Oriaku told The Nation on phone he was still consulting to know his next political moves.
However, it was gathered the ex-Finance Commissioner has completed his membership registration with the APC Mbutu Ukwu ward.
An APC insider confirmed that Oriaku has joined the party at the ward level, stating that in due course, the former Abia Commissioner and a crop of other notable Isiala Ngwa South local government sons and daughters would be presented as APC members in the state.
On the rumoured 2023 political intentions of the ex-banker, the source said: “It may not be out of place that he has any political ambition come 2023. Political party is just like a church.
“The doors are open for all to come in. Oriaku is a man that knows what he wants. If he wants to contest for anything in 2023, I am sure that he will make it open when it is time to do so and if he has what it takes to contest for any position including the governorship position. No one is going to stop him from contesting a position that he is eminently qualified to contest.”
