One week after leaving PDP, Marwa joins APC

One week after he resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Buba Marwa, former military administrator of Lagos and Borno states, has announced his defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Bello Zubairu, his media aide, announced the development in a statement issued on Wednesday, saying thousands of Marwa’s supporters also joined him to his new party.

“The decision to return to the APC was jointly reached at a well attended meeting held in Yola by Marwa and his supporters under the aegis of The Marwa Organization, TMO,” the statement read.

“It would be recalled that before the emergence of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Gen Marwa was the governorship candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, in Adamawa state and after the merger of CPC and other opposition parties to form the APC, thousands of his supporters from several local government areas of Adamawa state were technically denied the opportunity to register in the new party then.

“All efforts to seek redress through the appropriate channels were to no avail, thus leaving thousands of you, TMO members, without a party.”

In December 2006, he contested the presidential primary of the PDP but lost to late president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

One year after he was appointed Nigeria’s high commissioner to South Africa.

In 2011, Marwa who ran under the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) lost to Murtala Nyako of the PDP.

CPC eventually had a merger with the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to form APC and Marwa was in the party until late 2013 when Nyako joined five PDP governors that crossed to APC.

He returned to the PDP where he tried to pick the ticket for the bye-election, which was supposed to be conducted after the impeachment  of Nyako in July 2014.

At the primary election, Marwa emerged third with 54 votes.

Umaru Fintiri, acting governor of the state, clinched the ticket with 624 votes ahead of Ahmed Modibbo, a former Universal Basic Education Commission boss, who scored 197 votes.

The election, scheduled for September 6 of that year, did not hold as a result of a court ruling, which ordered that Bala Ngilari, Nyako’s deputy, be sworn into office because he was not removed like his boss.