{"id":196887,"date":"2026-03-17T12:23:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members"},"modified":"2026-03-17T13:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:33:11","slug":"defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members","title":{"rendered":"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, does not go out of its ways looking for people to join the party.<\/p>\n<p>Ahmed made this statement on Monday when he appeared as a guest in an interview on \u2018Politics Today\u2019, a programme on Channels Television.<\/p>\n<p>He was speaking on mass defection to the APC.<\/p>\n<p>almost all the governors have defected to the APC, with the governor of Zamfara State as the latest defector.<\/p>\n<p>Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and his Bauchi State counterpart are the only two PDP governors remaining, with rumours that Mohammed is set to join the train.<\/p>\n<p>Airing his own opinion, Ahmed said, \u201cWe don\u2019t go out of our way looking for people to come just because they want to defect or we want to weaken the opposition. I thought personally that the opposition was just unbelievably weak.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am not a fan of defectors in political parties. The political and democratic spirit in me does not appreciate defections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is that we are merrier every time somebody comes to us. I thought, personally, that the opposition was just unbelievably weak. I couldn\u2019t believe what I was seeing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey couldn\u2019t take advantage of so many issues to better their lots,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, does not go out of its ways looking for people to join the party. Ahmed made this statement on Monday when he appeared as a guest in an interview on \u2018Politics Today\u2019, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":196886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-196887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-parties","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressiv ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressiv ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-17T11:23:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-17T12:33:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-17T11:23:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-17T12:33:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members\"},\"wordCount\":242,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Parties\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members\",\"name\":\"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members - Nigeria\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-17T11:23:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-17T12:33:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"description\":\"Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressiv ...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/\",\"name\":\"Africa Press | Nigeria | Homepage\",\"description\":\"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\",\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/author\/cfeditoren\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members - Nigeria","description":"Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressiv ...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members","og_description":"Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressiv ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members","og_site_name":"Nigeria","article_published_time":"2026-03-17T11:23:49+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-03-17T12:33:11+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cfeditoren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cfeditoren","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members"},"author":{"name":"cfeditoren","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"headline":"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members","datePublished":"2026-03-17T11:23:49+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-17T12:33:11+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members"},"wordCount":242,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg","keywords":["Nigeria"],"articleSection":["all news","Parties"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members","name":"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members - Nigeria","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg","datePublished":"2026-03-17T11:23:49+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-17T12:33:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"description":"Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, Pi-CNG, Ismaeel Ahmed, says the ruling All Progressiv ...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/sm_1773750728.382288.jpg","width":1280,"height":720,"caption":"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/parties\/defections-apc-chieftain-ahmed-on-seeking-members#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Defections: APC Chieftain Ahmed on Seeking Members"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/","name":"Africa Press | Nigeria | Homepage","description":"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb","name":"cfeditoren","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/author\/cfeditoren"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}