February 09, (THEWILL) — Governor Adamu Umaru Fintiri of Adamawa State has met with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and sealed a pact to defect to the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the days ahead, THEWILL can exclusively report.
Fintiri appears to have fallen out with his godfather and presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 presidential election, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is now a chieftain and a leading presidential aspirant in the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
THEWILL gathered that the major highlight of the pact is for the governor to take over the party structure in the state. Sources told this newspaper that the assurance sealed the deal for the governor who had been under immense pressure from his counterparts in the other five out of six states in Northeast zone to join them in the governing APC, and the relentless, intense pressure from Vice-President Kashim Shettima.
The Vice-President has been working relentlessly to make the six states in the Northeast region all APC controlled.
As part of the bargain, the party has postponed the scheduled congress in the state until Fintiri officially joins the party to enable him to form a structure that works for him. President Tinubu’s recent declaration that governors on the APC platform remain leaders of the party in their respective states, a statement that our source said reassured Fintiri of his unfettered control of the party when he joins the APC.
The president made the declaration on Saturday, January 31, 2026, at the official reception of Governor Agbu Kefas into the APC held in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital.
Vice President Kashim Shettima, who represented Tinubu on that occasion announced that Kefas had assumed the leadership of the party in Taraba by virtue of his defection from the PDP to the APC. Shettima who expressed his determination to support the governor and his cabinet in bringing development to Taraba, expressed satisfaction with the defection of a governor of the major opposition party in the Northeast geopolitical zone and called on the remaining PDP governors in the zone, Adamawa and Bauchi, to join the party at the centre. Fintri’s defection would further strengthen the party in the zone, bringing the governors on the APC platform to five outside of Bauchi State. Borno, Gombe, Yobe, Taraba are already APC compliant states.
THEWILL recalls that Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State on December 31, 2025, disclosed that he has been under intense pressure from the APC to defect, saying that his refusal has led the Federal Governor to deploy state institutions and the judiciary to cow opposition politicians in the state into compliance.
Mohammed who is Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, however, maintained that he would remain in the PDP despite the ongoing pressure to defect.
“I won’t join APC no matter the pressure,” he declared, adding that he would not allow himself to be “criminalised” for remaining in the opposition.
Fintiri’s eventual defection would add up APC governor’s list to 31 states and further reduce the governors on the platform of the PDP to three, Mohammed in Bauchi, Seyi Makinde in Oyo and Dauda Lawal in Zamfara, a huge blow to the once dominant party.
The Adamawa governor would be the eight from the PDP stable, who have defected to the APC since 2025. They are Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State, Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom, Douye Diri of Bayelsa, Peter Mbah of Enugu, Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers, Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau and Agbu Kefas of Taraba.
