Former Plateau State Governor and current senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Joshua Dariye, on Thursday defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Dariye left the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on whose platform he was first elected governor and then elected to the National Assembly to represent Plateau Central senatorial district.
Dariye is one of the former governors facing corruption charges as he is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on charges bordering on money laundering and diversion of funds.
His case with the EFCC is before Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, Gudu, Abuja.
Alleged to have siphoned the state’s ecological fund to the tune of N1.16 billion, Dariye in 2004, fled the United Kingdom where he was being tried for money laundering.
The EFCC first filed charges against him before Justice Banjoko in 2007.
He pleaded not guilty and commencement of his trial was fixed for November 13 of that year, but before that date, Dariye filed a suit challenging the competence of the charges and the jurisdiction of the court.
He argued that he ought to be tried before a Plateau State High Court and not the FCT High Court.
For about nine years, his trail was delayed until February 2015 when the Supreme Court affirmed the competence of the Abuja court to try him.
Senate President Bukola Saraki announced Dariye’s defection just before the Senate adjourned on Thursday.
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