Natasha Akpoti : Why I dumped SDP for PDP

Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the former governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party in the 2019 elections has revealed why she moved over to the Peoples Democratic Party, laying emphasis on party structure.

This was revealed on Saturday by the philanthropist turned politician, who would be officially defecting to the PDP in a phone conversation, the reasons behind her defection.

Natasha hinged her action on the weak structure of her former party arguing that the SDP lacked such structure that was being pulled by the PDP.

“I’ve come to realise some mistakes in the past elections I held, which was the Senate and the Kogi Governorship election, 2019.

“I’ve realised that popularity alone does not help. The party structure helps a lot. From the result of the Senate Kogi Central in 2019, I, in SDP, had about 48,300 votes while the PDP sitting senator Ogembe, had 18,100. That means I defeated the sitting Senator, with over 30,000 votes, and then you begin to wonder what happened.

“Ordinarily, I would have had about 67,000 or 70,000 votes or much more. But I didn’t have strong Polling Unit agents. Even, Ogembe, the little he had, he was able to secure.

“Systemic organization goes a long way in helping any candidate,” She said.

Natasha noted that if she was going to contest again, she needed to do something about the issue of structure.

“So I asked myself, what I would do if I were to contest again,” she said.