IBUKUNOLUWA KING-OKUNEYE
A former governor of Kano State, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau has formally defected from the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
This development is coming barely three months after Shekarau defected to NNPP from the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He made the official declaration on Monday afternoon at his Mundubawa home in Kano, Kano State.
Shekarau was formally welcomed into PDP by the 2023 party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the party’s National Chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, among other top party chieftains.
Shekarau said he had written to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to announce his withdrawal from the Kano Central Senatorial seat electon on the platform of NNPP.
Various PDP chieftains were in attendance including the party’s vice presidential candidate and governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa; governors of Sokoto and Taraba states, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and Darius Ishaku.
Others were former Vice President Namadi Sambo; the BoT chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin; former governors of Jigawa State, Saminu Turaki, and Sule Lamido; Sokoto State, Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa; Kaduna State, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi; Adamawa State, Boni Haruna, and spokesperson of the Atiku Presidential Campaign, Senator Dino Melaye, among other party chieftains.
Shekarau reportedly left the NNPP over the failure of the party’s presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, to honour an agreement they both reached, before he joined the party.
Shekarau is said to have demanded that Shekarau ensure that some of his loyalists get NNPP’s ticket for different positions in the coming 2023 elections, but the agreement, it was learnt, was not kept.