Exposed! How Saraki, Dogara, others lured APC Lawmakers in defection to PDP

As 2019 politicking thickens, more revelations are coming into the public about the “anti-party” that Senate President Bukola Saraki, Speaker Yakubu Dogara and others committed to lure some members of All Progressives Congress (APC) into decamping to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the August defections in the National Assembly.

Honourable Bode Ayorinde, a member of the House of Representatives representing Owo/Ose Federal Constituency of Ondo State at the National Assembly, has given insight into how they were made to dump the party for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Ayorinde spoke on Tuesday at a stakeholders meeting and flag-off ceremony for his campaign in Owo area of the state.

According to the lawmaker, a series of meetings were held at different locations in Abuja where they perfected their defection from APC to PDP.
He also explained that the meetings were planned by the duo of Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogora.

Speaking on the moves that led to the defection of the lawmakers, Ayorinde said: “We held a series of meetings on how to move this country forward since the ‘Change’ agenda that the APC-led goverment promised the people of this country seems to be a total scam and nothing is working.

“Senate President Bukola Saraki chaired the meeting; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogora was there, as well as the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal and many other former senators. They felt the need to change the man in government, who is not making things work perfectly.

“Later, they called about 34 of us at the House of Representatives to come into the meeting where a group was formed, while they also called on 15 rebel senators to join us. We held no less than 59 meetings, planning and strategising on our breaking away from the ruling APC.  We all contemplated on whether to form a new party or join an existing one.”

The Ondo Federal Lawmaker, who is also the candidate of the PDP for the same Owo/Ose federal constituency, said three political parties — Social Democratic Party (SDP), African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) — were suggested to them during their meetings.

He continued: “We called on the leaders of these political parties to come and talk to us on how they can develop the country if we moved en masse into their fold.
It was Professor Adediran who led those from SDP to come and convince us that we should defect to their party while talks were ongoing. It was Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola who led those from the camp of the ADC, and he begged us to join because it is Baba Obasanjo’s political party and that if we join, we can join them to move Nigeria forward.

“And for the PDP, it was the National Chairman of the umbrella party, Mr. Uche Secondus, who led the team of about 20 people to convince us about the PDP.
We now sat down and looked into the strengths of these parties, then we asked them what they would do for us if we joined them. However, they asked us to pen down what we wanted from them.
Then, we went back and wrote that we wanted the security agencies to be more strengthened, so as to tackle the security challenges in the nation such as the herdsmen crisis, Boko Haram and others, for peace to reign.

“We also demanded that they provide jobs/employment in all senatorial districts of the nation in order for the youth to be gainfully employed and leave the streets.
Also, we told them that we hoped they would give all of us — serving Senators and the House of Representatives members — automatic tickets, if we defect from APC to their own party.
They said they were satisfied with all our demands and they shall do as we asked. We documented these demands and both parties signed the the six-point agreement.”

According to Ayorinde, the federal lawmakers decided to form the R-APC within the ruling party, when they were still strategising on their next move from APC to PDP.

“We later got back to the National Assembly and we gave ourselves a name, which is the Reformed-APC.
I was the Chairman of the House of Representatives, while Senator Dino Melaye was Chairman of the Senate House.
While others in the group were still afraid to announce their defection, I was the first person to announce my exit from the APC to the PDP on the floor of the National Assembly.

“After our announcement, we travelled to our constituencies to register as bonafide members of PDP, and we were all accepted into the umbrella party with the aim of winning the election for our presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.”