The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has dumped the Peoples Democratic Party for the ruling All Progressives Congress.
The Chairman, APC Caretaker/Convention Planning Committee, Mai Malla Buni, disclosed this after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari and the former speaker at the Presidential Villa, in Abuja.
Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Buni, who is also the Governor of Kebbi State, said the former speaker “is now a member of the APC.” Dogara, however, declined to speak.
“We paid a courtesy call on the President in continuation of our effort to rebuild the party,” Buni said.
“The former speaker is a member of the APC. He is back now because the reason he left the APC is no more there. The President welcomed him (Dogara). He is happy with the development. That is what he is looking for. We are rebuilding the party and these are the steps we are taking towards rebuilding the party,” the governor responded, when asked why Dogara was at the meeting.
“We are rebuilding our party to outlive all of us. It is not about election, it is not about electioneering. It is about building a party,” he added.
The former speaker had decamped from the ruling party to the PDP in September 2018.
The APC had, in its reaction to his defection at the time, described him as a “paper-weight politician” and inconsequential in his home state of Bauchi.