The gale of defection sweeping across the country yesterday hit Nasarawa State as over 5,000 members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) belonging to the Kwankwasiyya group in the state defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The event took place at the state secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lafia, where the defectors bade farewell to their former party, APC. Speaking to newsmen shortly after the event, a representative of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and leader of the Kwankwasiyya group, Aminu Dabo, said they were at the PDP secretariat to formally merge with party.

He said: “The Kwankwasiyya group came to formally present themselves to the chairman of the state PDP, which will open the way for all our members to start registering with the party.

“We have decamped from APC to PDP long ago. So this is the coming together formally of our members so that everyone will go to his ward and register with the PDP. “Each one that came here is the representative of the Kwankwasiyya group. Over 5,000 members came to formally present themselves to the PDP.”

In another development, PDP in Nasarawa State yesterday alleged that Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura led APC government in the state received over N390 billion federal allocations in the last seven and a half years with no commiserate development projects to show for it.

State Chairman of the party, Hon. Francis Orogu, made the allegation in Lafia while receiving Senator Solomon Ewuga, a governorship aspirant on the platform of the party, who was at the party secretariat to formally inform the party of his gubernatorial ambition in the 2019 general election.

Orogu claimed that the alleged amount received from the federation account since 2011 to date was exclusive of other intervention funds from the Federal Government and regretted that the state had so far been indebted to the tune of over N70 billion within the period under review despite the sale of public assets by the state government.