There were strong indications last weekend that Speaker Aminu Tambuwal of the House of Representatives may have quit the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Though no official confirmation came from Tambuwal’s office at press time last night, PDP chieftains who confided in Nigerian Pilot swore that the Speaker is a member of opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, even as they fear that the Speaker’s 2015 bid to govern Sokoto state is now in jeopardy.

But his media aide insisted that Tambuwal is still in PDP with one of them saying that he was on lesser Hajj when Jonathan led PDP chieftains to receive former Sokoto state governor, Attahiru Bafarawa to the ruling party.

The aide however failed to give convincing reasons why nobody, including Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, represented the Speaker at the rally given its importance and the fact that it took place in Sokoto which is Tambuwal’s home state.

Tambuwal, whose interactions with opposition groups and personalities in the country had long given him out as one who was deliberately flouting PDP’s constitution and the need to avoid been seen or perceived as one that was conspicuously absent at last Saturday’s grand reception for former governor of Sokoto state, Attahiru Bafarawa into the PDP from the APC by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Notable leaders of the PDP from the state and across the PDP were present at the event, save for Tambuwal who, though a member of the party, is strongly believed to be hobnobbing with the opposition.

“We knew all this while that he never belonged here; but he has always pretended to be with us while his soul belongs in the opposition camp. Thank God for this Sokoto event that has exposed him and his antiparty tendencies,” retorted a PDP elder who added, “we are still studying Tumbuwal’s body language.”

It was learnt that the PDP may have ruled the Speaker out of the Sokoto governorship race in 2015 given “his disloyalty, dishonesty scheming and antiparty activities,” the PDP elder further said.

But the Speaker’s media aide, Andrew Oota, in a telephone interview reacted thus: “We are talking about the number four man in this country. If he will decamp, he will do it in the open and not by his body language.

“He has not left PDP; he is still a member of PDP. He traveled for lesser Hajj that was why he was not in Sokoto.”

Tambuwal who was initially rumoured to be nursing a presidential ambition, mid last year, settled for governorship on the platform of PDP. His body language however, continued to portray him as one leader that could belong to the opposition.

The increasing audacity of the APC in the House, according to observers, was long attributed to the backing of the Speaker who it was also learnt, has been promised the Sokoto state governorship ticket by the APC.

But though he had the firm promise by the opposition, the Speaker allegedly continued to lobby for the same ticket from the PDP with a promise to positively manage the rising opposition in favour of the president.

•Credit (except for amended headline): Nigerian Pilot. Photo shows Speaker Tambuwal.

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