Bankole Wellington, also known as Banky W, is a Nigerian singer, actor, and current politician who is running for the House of Representatives in the Eti Osa Federal Constituency under the banner of the PDP. Banky W ran for office under the Modern Democratic Party’s banner the previous time he did so (MDP).
So, everyone is wondering why Banky W left the MDP to run for office under the PDP. In a recent interview with Citizen by Zikoko, Banky W discusses his decision-making process and the reasons he switched from the MDP to the PDP. Here are Banky W’s exact words.
Speaking about why he left the Modern Democratic Party (MDP) to join the PDP, Banky W said:
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BANKY W: First of all people need to understand that in 2019, we had I think 96 political parties. We actually had about 73 people running for president, which I’m sorry, is completely insane. After those elections, INEC deregistered the majority of those political parties. Now, we’re down to about 18 I believe. MDP was one of the parties that were deregistered by INEC so the party ceased to exist. However, even before that, honestly MDP was you know myself, and my very good friend BK. He was the chairman of the party and he was running in Ondo State, I was running in Lagos. And that was it. It was pretty much me, my friends, my family, volunteers, and the same thing for him in Ondo State. There really was no party. There was no structure. There was nothing else aside from these two crazy candidates who wanted to attempt this thing. Now, when the dust settles after INEC deregisters everybody, you then have to make a decision to say okay, where do we go where we can accomplish two things: one, we can stay true to who we are. Still fight for the values and the vision that we have and the things that we want to accomplish in office. But two, we have a genuine chance of gaining the structure that we need with like minds in that system to actually get into office, because ultimately that is the goal. People get involved for politics for many many reasons. For some people, it’s to raise their profile, it’s to raise awareness, but in my mind, awareness is not a goal, awareness is a tool. So there are people who they say they are running for office, but you’ve not even been to the wards where you’re running. You’ve not met with the people in the various parts of the community or the constituency where you’re running. There are people who will say they are running for president but you’ve not been anywhere, you’ve not spoken to the people, and you’re maybe running more of a campaign just online and on social media. The point being we are really running for office because there is a genuine desire here to get into office to change things from within. PDP’s ideology is democracy, it is a truly democratic party.