One of the chieftains of the All Progressives Congress,APC, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff has defected to the Peoples Democratic Party ,PDP.
Modu-Sheriff ,a former governor of Borno State who has reportedly been at logger-heads with incumbent Governor Kashim Shettima, told Journalists on Monday in Maiduguri ,“There is nothing to hide as you can see, I have come to consult with my people on our resolve to pull out of the APC and join the PDP. But this is just a private visit which turned out to be some kind of rally because our supporters wanted it that way”.
He said further,“We are still consulting with the national officers of the PDP on how to go about it, because the pull out is going to be big, and we hope to organise it after fasting. Presently, as you can see, majority of our people are fasting and praying for peace to return to our dear state. But after the Ramadan we would come back and pull our people out of the APC”.
Modu-Sheriff’s defection did not come as a surprise to keen watchers of the intrigues within the APC where he has been reported to have disagreed with some leaders at various times.
Earlier,Attahiru Bafarawa from Sokoto State, General Buba Marwa,Adamawa State and Ibrahim Shekarau(Kano) all former APC chieftains defected to PDP.In fact,Shekarau has been rewarded with an appointment the substantive minister of Education by President Goodluck Jonathan,possibly to strengthen him ahead of the battle for Kano’s votes in 2015.
Modu-Sheriff while he was in APC appeared to be a close ally of Chief Tom Ikimi,one of those who failed to clinch the national chairmanship slot at the party’s convention.The former governor of Borno state had publicly lambasted APC leaders for failing to give due recognition, in his view, to Ikimi in a documentary on the birth of APC as the party unveiled it manifesto in Abuja.
Now that he has defected to PDP, will Ikimi join him? Only time will tell.
