The Peoples Democratic Party said it was not aware that the Senate Minority Leader, Chief Godswill Akpabio, was going to London where he met with President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday.
Rather, it said the former governor of Akwa Ibom State told members of the party’s National Working Committee that he was on his way to Germany.
The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, who stated this in Abuja on Monday, said the party was not aware of Akpabio’s planned defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress.
He said the minority leader of the Senate could have had what he called “technical stopover” in London.
Ologbondiyan said, “He told us he was going to Germany and if he ended up in London, maybe, he had a technical stopover.
“The PDP has no issues with Akpabio whatsoever and the party will not respond to speculations of his readiness to defect. We have no notice of the said defection and all I can say now is that we will cross the bridge when we get there.”
Investigations by one of our correspondents showed that the rumour of Akpabio’s planned defection had been rife within the national leadership of the PDP, including the governors.
It was gathered that one of the governors, name withheld, from the southern part of the country had openly accused Akpabio of hobnobbing with the ruling party at the residence of the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, recently.
The event was said to have happened when the leaders of the party visited Ekweremadu as a result of a siege laid to his house by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recently.
The governor, according to a top-ranking member of the PDP, openly confronted Akpabio and demanded explanations why he had allegedly been meeting secretly with leaders of the APC.
The source said, “We were all surprised with the governor from the southern part of the country, who accused him (Akpabio) of playing a double game. He asked why Akpabio had refused to speak out for the party of recent and why he had been absent at party’s events.
“We all knew that Akpabio was actually meeting with APC leaders at night, and laughing with us during the day. But we didn’t know how to handle it.
“Akpabio, however, refused to speak to the governor. Rather, he was just smiling, even though he seemed not to be enjoying the talk.
“The DSP (Ekweremadu) tried to calm the said governor down, but you know he is very outspoken. He said it without fear or favour, that he knew that he was saying.”
It was also gathered that the National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus, had tried to dissuade Akpabio from joining the APC.