'APC will welcome Jonathan if he decides to join them'

The National Secretary of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), John Akpanudoedehe, says his party will roll out the red carpet for former President Goodluck Jonathan should he decide to switch camps.

Rumours bordering on Jonathan's defection from the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC wouldn't go away, even though the man at the center of it all, continues to deny that he is mulling such a move.

“Everyone is allowed to join the APC, we welcome everyone who wants to join. We are getting stronger in terms of our progressive agenda. I’m hearing that for the first time. If he comes, we will welcome him, that will be great news.

“The last National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting gave a blanket approval to everyone who wants to join the party and anyone who joins the party has the right to aspire for any office,” Akpanudoedehe said during a ChannelsTV programme.

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan is having none of it, however.

“Speculations that our former president and some of our governors are joining the APC remain what they are, speculations that exist in the figment of the imagination of the authors of such baseless speculations,” Ologbondiyan says.

In March, ex-Senate President Bukola Saraki, led a delegation to Jonathan's home to beg him not to join the APC.

Jonathan governed Nigeria from 2010 to 2015. He is the first incumbent civilian president in Nigeria's history to lose a re-election battle and concede.