A number of prominent defectors have been officially received by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa state on Saturday with a vow to rest the governorship seat from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2023.

WITHIN NIGERIA learnt among those officially welcomed into the party is a former governor of the state under PDP, Mr Bala Ngillari; before now the PDP senator for Adamawa North Zone, Ishaku Abbo; the state governorship candidate of Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 2019, Chief Emmanuel Bello; and governorship candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC) in 2019, Sen Abdulazeez Nyako.

All the personalities typically joined the APC with their supporters.

The case of ADC’s Abdulazeez Nyako was particularly so as it was a virtual collapse of the entire party structure following earlier merger talks with the APC, although a ceremony to give legal teeth to this merger is slated for a later date.

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The leading new members spoke through representatives, who all canvassed level playing ground for new and old APC members alike.

They also all pledged the sort of support that the APC would need to take the governorship seat from PDP’s Ahmadu Fintiri come 2023.

They spoke against the wide held perception that the APC whose Jibrilla Bindow was governor and party candidate towards the 2019 election, lost that election because of disunity in the APC.

Our correspondent recalls that Abdulazeez Nyako who was APC senator, left the APC to be ADC’s governorship candidate, while the two prominent APC governorship aspirants who lost the ticket to Bindow did not work for Bindow during the general election.

The new members urged the APC leadership to work out ways to cement unity so that the party could speak with one voice come 2023.

Responding, the state APC Caretaker Chairman, Alhaji Ibrahim Bilal, assured of fair play for all new and old members.

He said that in any case the APC will be a new party altogether in terms of membership as its forthcoming registration exercise would be admitting all members as new.