{"id":179113,"date":"2025-09-16T15:06:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T14:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors"},"modified":"2025-09-16T16:06:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:06:18","slug":"edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors","title":{"rendered":"Edo LP Candidate Akpata Debunks Defection Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2024 Edo State governorship election, Olumide Akpata, has denied claims that he is planning to defect the All Progressives Congress, APC.<\/p>\n<p>There were reports that Akpata was set to defect to the APC.<\/p>\n<p>However, Akpata has described the reports as mischievous and false.<\/p>\n<p>In a post on X, he wrote, \u201cIn the past 24 hours, a malicious, mischievous and utterly false rumour has been concocted in the dark alleys of social media, and unfortunately amplified by mischief-makers, alleging that I have abandoned the @NgLabour Party, the very platform on which I contested the 2024 Edo State gubernatorial election, to join the All Progressives Congress, APC.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not only false but laughable. I state without equivocation that I have neither contemplated, discussed, nor effected a defection to the APC and for the avoidance of doubt, I have no intention of ever joining the APC.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Akpata contested the Edo State governorship election on the platform of the Labour Party. He however lost to APC candidate, Governor Monday Okpebholo.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2024 Edo State governorship election, Olumide Akpata, has denied claims that he is planning to defect the All Progressives Congress, APC. There were reports that Akpata was set to defect to the APC. However, Akpata has described the reports as mischievous and false. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":179112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[12135,34,18749,254],"class_list":["post-179113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-akpata","tag-apc","tag-edo-lp","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Edo LP Candidate Akpata Debunks Defection Rumors - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2024 Edo State governorship election, Olumide Akpata, has denied claims that h ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Edo LP Candidate Akpata Debunks Defection Rumors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2024 Edo State governorship election, Olumide Akpata, has denied claims that h ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-16T14:06:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-16T15:06:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1758022762.855596.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"607\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Edo LP Candidate Akpata Debunks Defection Rumors\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-16T14:06:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-16T15:06:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors\"},\"wordCount\":191,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/sm_1758022762.855596.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Akpata\",\"APC\",\"Edo LP\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/edo-lp-candidate-akpata-debunks-defection-rumors\",\"name\":\"Edo LP Candidate Akpata Debunks Defection Rumors - 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