Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed has dumped the Peoples Democratic Party for the Allied Peoples Movement, announcing his defection on Saturday after consultations with political stakeholders and days after the Supreme Court nullified the PDP’s 2025 Ibadan convention.
Mohammed made the move in Bauchi with his commissioners, special advisers and most PDP officials in the state, saying he was taking his full political structure from ward to state level. The APM received him through its national chairman, Yusuf Mamman Dantalle, who later handed him his membership card.
“After extensive consultation, we have taken a firm and strategic decision to join the Allied Peoples Movement (APM),” Mohammed said, adding that the party offered “a viable platform to organise effectively, mobilise our supporters, and present a credible alternative.” He said the decision was driven by the need to secure victory and continue serving the public with integrity.
The defection lands at a moment of acute strain inside the PDP. Until Saturday, Mohammed was the chairman of the party’s Governors’ Forum, and he and Seyi Makinde were the only governors still in the PDP. Makinde’s chief press secretary, Sulaimon Olanrewaju, said Makinde had not mentioned any defection plan.
Mohammed said the Supreme Court ruling on Thursday, which nullified the PDP’s 2025 Ibadan convention, was a turning point. He said efforts to restore stability had failed and warned that he could not allow supporters to be left without a credible political platform. He added that he had moved after wide consultations because the party’s internal troubles had left him with no workable path forward.
The governor’s shift also closes a political loop that began years ago. He was first elected to the Senate from Bauchi South in 2007 on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, served as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory from April 8, 2010, to May 2015, then won the Bauchi governorship on the PDP ticket in 2019 and was re-elected in 2023.
There is now a clear next step. Mohammed said he intends to return to the Senate on the APM ticket and will contest the Bauchi South senatorial seat in 2027. The move gives him a new platform, but it also confirms how far the PDP has fallen after months of defections and fragmentation, with the party’s last two governors now gone or sidelined as the election timetable tightens and primaries approach.
Mohammed said those who placed their hope in him had called on him to act, and that he felt duty-bound to answer. On Saturday, he did exactly that.
