The Peoples Democratic Party, on Monday, welcomed a former governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, back to its fold after he (Shekarau) had been in the New Nigeria People’s Party for about three months.
Recall that The PUNCH reported that Shekarau had hinted at defecting from Rabiu Kwankwaso’s NNPP citing “betrayal of trust.”
Shekarau had, in May 2022, parted ways with the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, and dumped the All Progressives Congress for the NNPP, taking thousands of his supporters with him.
In 2014, Shekarau, who was one of the founding fathers of the APC, dumped the party for the PDP in protest against what he described as handing over of the party structure in Kano State to Kwankwaso, the then governor of the state, following the latter’s defection to the party from the PDP.
However, in the build-up to the 2019 general election, Shekarau dumped the PDP and returned to the APC in 2018 following the dissolution of the State Executive Committee of the PDP and the setting up of a caretaker committee by the party (PDP).
Speaking on his latest defection from the NNPP, Shekarau said, “All the agreements we had with him were betrayed by Kwankwaso and his boys and they did not accommodate one single person from my camp.
“We reached an agreement to accommodate my supporters into various elective positions in the party, but until now, the committee set up could not accommodate one single person apart from the senatorial slot given to me.
“I will never be a party to injustice. My integrity is utmost and not any political position that will make me compromise it and that of my people. Nobody will use position or money against my integrity.
“I am a man of honour and integrity but his governorship candidate (Abba Yusuf) who was given the responsibility to look at areas to accommodate my people into various elective positions never for one single day do so or even call for meeting let alone accepting my supporters to contest.
“Nobody will use money to change my conscience. I was a governor for eight years in Kano and people believed in my integrity.
“I am still living in a rented house in Abuja and never allocated a single plot of land to myself when I served as Governor in Kano and I challenge anyone who knows my plot of land to expose it.”
Welcoming Shekarau to the party in Kano on Monday, the national chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, stated that the party would not be distracted by peddlers of lies and that the party would grow stronger, adding that, “…we’re going to win Kano and we’re going to win everywhere.”
“I want to thank all the supporters of His Excellency Ibrahim Shekarau, who in spite of the rain…defied the rain and have come here in their hundreds of thousands. There are so many outside there that you can’t see within this arena. And I believe that God willing we shall overcome all distracting forces, we shall work hard a if our lives depend on it… and I want to tell you all that we are going to overcome whatever difficulties we may have.
“Our party is getting more united, and w thank the effort of our leader, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who has done everything possible to bring every member on board,” Ayu added.