A ninth-assembly senator who spoke to Saturday PUNCH on anonymity reportedly told The Punch that ten or more ex-cabinet members of Muhammadu Buhari were reportedly preparing to join the SDP. According to the senator, they were holding off on the move until their state parties’ organisational structures were finalised.
Some of Buhari’s most important allies were in charge of the plotted defections, according to investigations conducted by correspondents from The Punch. Their ranks included Abdullahi Adamu, a former APC national chairman; Abubakar Malami, a former attorney general and minister of justice; and Ahmed Lawan, a former president of the Senate.
Among those rumoured to be part of the alliance are Ali Ndume, the senator for Borno South, Emeka Nwajiuba, the former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), David Mark, the former president of the Senate, and Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.
According to an APC chieftain in Imo State who spoke with Saturday PUNCH, members of the party who had previously belonged to the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) had already made arrangements to join a coalition.
The anonymous chieftain claimed that some ministers who had worked under Buhari were either already leaving or were intending to leave the APC. Though he acknowledged that they might not officially join the SDP, he was confident in their involvement with the coalition effort as a whole.
He went on to say that numerous senators from the ninth National Assembly were about to leave the APC, and that 10 former ministers were also departing. It hurt to watch the party’s fortunes decline every day, he said, because President Bola Tinubu had bungled the party’s achievements. He said that the leaders of the APC in the north and south were unhappy, but the president seemed unfazed. Despite the fact that the APC was shrinking in size, he maintained that a political party cannot expand by contracting in size.
In addition, he mentioned that members of the CPC faction had been defecting. When I say the CPC is a powerful faction within the APC, I think you’ll agree with me that the party won’t be the same without it.
Those who are departing from the All Progressives Congress are members of the party’s founding who have true fans. The political movement includes El-Rufai and other former governors as well. He further emphasised that these politicians are not insignificant.
