I LEFT PDP TO SAVE MY MARRIAGE ----AKUNYULI

Former Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili, on Thursday said her husband, Dr. Chike Akunyili, forced her to quit the Peoples Democratic Party. Akunyili, who left the PDP last December to contest the Anambra Central Senatorial seat on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, said her husband could no longer accept the violent nature of the PDP in Anambra State. 



She recalled how she called a stakeholders' meeting of the PDP in Awka in 2010 after the party lost the governorship election, saying developments at the meeting shocked her husband, who gave a choice between her marriage and the PDP. She said some PDP members organised hoodlums, who released tear-gas bannisters at the meeting venue and sent everyone scampering to safety. 





"There and then, my husband asked me to choose between my marriage to him and attending PDP meetings," she said. Akunyili said in contrast with the situation in the PDP in Anambra State, APGA was fostering peace and unity, fostered by the Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi 



On her campaign for the forthcoming National Assembly election, she lamented the high cost of electioneering in Nigeria, but said she had been able to sustain her campaigns because of the goodwill she enjoyed from people both in Nigeria and abroad. 



She said, Akunyili said, "Politics is a rough and difficult terrain. It is crazy. It saps one emotionally. When you are dealing with agbero politicians, it becomes more stressful.



"My experience in the field is bad. There are all sorts of campaigns of calumny, but I am happy I have overcome all of them. I have to go to the market and dance like a crazy person."