Big blow to PDP as Kaduna governorship aspirant joins APC
By Shuaib Sadiq/Kaduna
Dr Mohammed Sani-Bello, a former governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State has formally joined the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Sani-Bello announced his decision to join the APC at a news conference on Saturday in Kaduna.
He said he consulted with his supporters before arriving at the decision to join the APC.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Sani-Bello dumped the PDP on Nov. 12, due to what he described as unending mistrust between him and the state leadership of the party, and its governorship candidate, Alhaji Isa Ashiru.
“Based on consultations with my supporters and other stakeholders, I have decided that from today Nov. 12, 2018, I Dr Muhammad Sani-Bello, ceases to be a member of the PDP.”
According to him, the mistrust emanated from the refusal of the party leaders in the state to put the term of consensus which led to his stepping down for Ashiru into writing prior to the party’s gubernatorial primaries.
He added that he was also not comfortable working with Ashiru, whose academic credentials were allegedly under question.
“Based on my findings, the documentation of the candidate contains certain flaws which remained unexplained,’’ he stressed.
He said the secondary school certificate of the PDP candidate does not bear his name, making its genuineness questionable.
According to him, with a questionable secondary school certificate that contained two passes, it became more questionable how the PDP candidate got the rest of the certificates he had been parading.
NAN reports that Ashiru had since debunked claims about his academic records, saying he has nothing to fear.
However, Sani-Bello added that all efforts made by him and other “discerning and concerned party members” for the state PDP leadership to address areas of friction were rebuffed.
He said he had consulted with APC in his Dogarawa Ward in Sabon Gari Local Government Area, as well as major party stakeholders at state and national level before joining it.
The politician said he had met with Gov. Nasiru El-Rufai and extensively discussed on various issues before finally announcing his defection to the ruling party.
He expressed optimism that more PDP aspirants and their supporters would soon join the APC.
