TheCable

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos, says Manir Dan’Iya, deputy governor of Sokoto, has defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The development comes hours after Aminu Abubakar, Dan’Iya’s spokesperson, told TheCable that his principal is still a member of the PDP.

The Sokoto deputy governor was responding to a letter circulating online that indicated that he had resigned from the PDP.

At the unveiling of the “10,000 foot soldiers” for the Tinubu/Shettima presidential campaign on Thursday, Sanwo-Olu said Dan’Iya defected with 10 commissioners.

“I have this for all of us. The current deputy governor of Sokoto just decamped this morning to APC, and he did that with 10 commissioners,” Sanwo-Olu said.

On his part, Babatunde Fashola, minister of works, also said the Sokoto deputy governor had joined the APC.

“It is not that we will not beat them; it is how convincingly we can do that. In 2019, when the presidential candidates of PDP, NNPP, and LP were in the same party, the APC defeated them by 3.9 million votes,” the minister said.

“When they were together, they were not enough to challenge. How can a sum total of what wasn’t enough now be enough when you have broken it into three parts? The arithmetic doesn’t hard up. We have the largest number of registered voters; it must count. 

“Just this morning, the Sokoto deputy governor defected from their party to APC. We are playing the game of addition and multiplication; they are playing that of division and subtraction.”