Many Ondo APC members dump party for PDP

On Wednesday, members of the ruling All Progressives Congress in Ondo State announced their defection to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The defectors, hailing from the state’s 208 wards across its 18 local government areas, declared their readiness to support the PDP candidate, Agboola Ajayi, in the November 16 governorship election.

Ajayi, a former deputy governor of the state, along with the PDP state leadership, welcomed the defectors at the Akure town hall in the state capital on Wednesday.

During the event, Ajayi addressed the new members, highlighting the prevalent suffering, hunger, and anger in the state due to the alleged maladministration of the APC-led government. He promised that, if elected, he would offer a better alternative for the people of Ondo State, and urged the new members to collaborate with existing PDP members to secure a victory in the forthcoming election.

He said, “We are working very hard to regain the state and we need to be strategic about it in order to emerge victorious in the November 2024 election because the people of the state are looking up to us.

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Northern politicians wooing Buhari to unseat Tinubu, says Shehu Sani

Senator Shehu Sani has alleged that northern politicians are working hard to woo Muhammadu Buhari in a plot to remove President Bola Tinubu from office ahead of 2027 presidential election.

He said the recent visits by the politicians to ex-President Buhari are part of the calculated moves to unseat Tinubu in the 2027 general election.

Indeed, the ex-senator noted that the northern politicians were interested in resurrecting Buhari’s political charm and fanaticism to mobilise the gullible people in the North for a selfish reason.

Newstrends recalls that many top northern politicians have recently visited Buhari in his Daura home, Katsina State.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Aminu Tambuwal, ex-governor of Sokoto, visited Buhari on June 22

About 24 hours after, Nasir el-Rufai, an ex-governor of Kaduna, also visited the former president.

In a statement on Monday, Sani said that though the visits were tagged as “Sallah homage,” they had a political undertone.

“The recent visits by some prominent northern politicians to Daura appear to be the usual Eid homage, but looking deeper and beyond the facade, it’s surreptitiously a new attempt to build a strong northern alliance using ex-President Buhari as a rallying point to challenge and evict President Tinubu’s government in 2027,” the statement read.

He also stated, “It’s a regrouping of Northern political forces for the next general election. A project that will eventually kiss the dust.

“They want to resurrect Buhari’s political charm and fanaticism and mobilise the gullible to another hollow and bewildering end.

“They want to stock up and light up the Arewa sentiment without considering the inferno it would eventually generate.”

Sani noted Buhari, a northerner who served as president for eight years, did not make a significant impact on the nation.

“They had power and wasted it. What do they want to do with it again?”

The former senator said, “A southerner is in power just for one year. It’s too early for the desperate and power-hungry northern elite to start plotting.

“The South never did that to Buhari. Their intended action has the capacity of ruining the democratic process and wrecking the fragile unity of the country when the south is awakened to this reality. Their obsession with power is condemnable.

“Opposition to Tinubu from the point of policies, promises and programs of his administration is a democratic right of any Nigerian.

“People have the right to speak and criticize the government. But attempts to whip up Northern sentiments to achieve their political ends is a dangerous political experiment and expedition at this material time.

“No serious southerner challenged Buhari for eight years. These power-drunk Northern politicians are dragging the region to a new political journey through a land mine.

“The Daura homage of the disgruntled and the obsessed will fail. Our people in the North should reject these faces and their plots.

“They have nothing to offer. From the abandoned Baro Port, Ajaokuta, Lake Chad basin refiling and Mambilla hydropower, they failed.”

PDP expels former Edo deputy governor, Philip Shaibu

Former Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, has been expelled from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Shaibu’s expulsion was announced on Wednesday by the leadership of the Edo chapter of the party.

The national vice chairman (South-South) of the party, Dan Orbih, was also expelled.

The development is contained in a statement issued in Benin by the party’s state publicity secretary, Ogie Vasco.

According to Vasco, Shaibu and Orbih were expelled for anti-party activities, according to PDP.