From Ali Abare Abubakar, Lafia
Barring last minute changes, the Deputy Governor of Nasarawa state, Dameshi Barau Luka, will tomorrow defect from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
State PDP Chairman, Yunana Iliya confirmed this to our reporter yesterday, saying the party will officially receive the deputy governor in a ceremony that will take place by 10am at the secretariat of the party located along Jos Road in Lafia.
Confirming the planned defection of the deputy governor earlier suspended from the APC for anti-party activities, the PDP chairman described the development as a welcome idea, stressing that Barau Luka is welcomed back to the party.
“PDP is his home, where he originated but has to leave and join other parties because of political wrangling”, Iliya said.
According to him, “the deputy governor is just like the prodigal son coming back home. This time around he is not coming back home empty handed but with something big in his hand.”
Earlier in the day and in a letter addressed to the state chairman of the APC, dated March 2, 2014, Barau Luka officially informed the party of his decision “not to join the All Progressive Congress (APC) from the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
In the letter titled “Decision not to join the APC”, Barau Luka said his decision was with immediate effect.
It would be recalled that Peoples Daily reported the planned defection of the Nasarawa deputy governor last week Monday, with recent happenings in the state further confirming the story.
Reacting over the matter, Nasarawa state interim chairman of the APC, Arc Stanley Buba, attributed the planned defection of the deputy governor to his inability to face charges of insubordination labeled against him by the hierarchy of the party which led to his suspension.
He challenged Luka to contravene decisions of the leadership of the party he is moving to and see if he will not be suspended.
“With every party he finds himself, he must be self disciplined, he must submit himself to the leadership of that party. The moment he said something contrary to the decision of the party, they will suspend him”, Buba stated.
On the claim by the deputy governor that he will not join the APC from the defunct CPC, Buba dismissed it as contradictory, adding that Luka, who represented the only CPC governor during the announcement of the merger that gave birth to the APC in Abuja, could not now turn around to say he was not part of the APC.
“We even have records that he attempted to register; we have a copy of his registration form which was brought to us without his thumb print.
He is number 56 on the register in his ward but he failed to thumb print the form” the APC chairman explained.
On whether the defection of the deputy governor could pose a threat to the electoral success of the APC come 2015, Arc Buba dismissed the idea, stressing that Luka has never been a threat and his defection could not affect the chances of the APC.
He scored the electoral profile of the defecting deputy governor as low, as according to him, “he ran for the House of representatives immediately he left Abdullahi Adamu’s cabinet as commissioner and he got a single vote.”
“When I ran for chairmanship in Akwanga, he was a serving commissioner in the government, even right in his ward, I won. In this present dispensation, find out if he even won in his ward “So who are the persons he is carrying over to the PDP when he didn’t even deliver his constituency to bring him to government?” Buba asked rhetorically.
The APC chairman stated that the party is waxing stronger in the state with more people coming into it, with a senator already defecting to the party, as well as having majority members of the federal House of Representatives.
