The Presidency has criticised members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who defected to the All Progressives Congress, APC. He said their activities in the opposition party had shown they lacked democratic credentials.

The Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, stated this on Wednesday while addressing reporters at the end of the weekly meeting of the Executive Council of the Federation, FEC.

The meeting was presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Mr. Maku argued that if the decampees were democrats, they would not have hijacked the APC structures in their states and sacked those who formed the party.

Among the PDP members that have defected to the APC in the last two months are Governors Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabi’u Kwankwaso (Kano), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara).

Apart from the governors, 37 PDP members in the House of Representatives decamped to the APC; while 11 senators already indicated their decision to move to the opposition party.

Members of some state Houses of Assembly elected on the platform of the PDP also moved to the opposition party. Last Sunday, a former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, also joined the APC.

The decampee governors, like others they met in their new party, were automatically made APC leaders in their states. This has led to confrontations with some older members of the party in their respective states.

“These people went and hijacked the party; took it away from them. So even from the point of view of justice, you were looking for democracy and you saw nothing wrong in going to another and hijacking the structure from them,” Mr. Maku said.

“So you can see they are not democrats, these are serious desperadoes who believe that unless they are in charge nobody should be and they are not democrats”.