Former minister of state for labour and productivity, Senator Joel Ikenya, has defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2027 general election.<\/p>\n
Ikenya announced his decision in a statement issued in Jalingo on Monday, adding that\u00a0the move was taken in the \u201cbest interest\u201d of the people of Taraba.<\/p>\n
Ikenya served as a member of the Taraba state House of Assembly, a member of the House of Representatives, and Senator representing Taraba south, before serving as a junior minister.<\/p>\n
He has also contested the governorship seat in the state on several occasions.<\/p>\n
His words: \u201cI want to begin by expressing my deepest gratitude for the love and solidarity you have shown to me since my political journey, which spanned over many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter careful consideration, due diligence, and wide consultations, I am pleased to announce that I have formally defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the interest of my people, Tarabans.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are all aware that PDP remains a party that has given me the platform to attain all the positions that I ever got in politics and this is where I believe I am loved.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Former minister of state for labour and productivity, Senator Joel Ikenya, has defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2027 general election. Ikenya announced his decision in a statement issued in Jalingo on Monday, adding that\u00a0the move was taken in the \u201cbest interest\u201d of the people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":238054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG-20230302-WA00601.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}