Former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, has claimed that President Bola Tinubu had been reaching out to him since 2015 to join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Metuh recalled that Tinubu sent his Chief of Staff and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, to reach out to him as part of efforts to make him join the APC.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja, Metuh, who announced that he has joined the APC last Sunday, said the president had on several occasions urged him to join the APC and work for him but he turned him down in the past.
He suggested that he rejected Tinubu’s overtures in the last few years before now because he had resignged from partisan politics.
“In the middle of my problem, he sent the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, to come and see me. He reached out to me; he comforted me,” he said.
“It took me a long time to get involved in politics. I’ve been called several times. The president wanted to work with me. Even in 2015, when we lost the election, I didn’t bother. He reached out to me again.
“When I left politics in 2022, he called me to come into his party. I refused. After he won the election, I went to see him. He called me to enter the party that he needed me. I refused because I stopped politics.”
Metuh was tried and jailed over his involvement in the diversion of funds meant to fight Boko Haram insurgents in 2015.
His alleged involvement in Dasukigate led to his imprisonment.
Metuh was accused of receiving N400 million from the Office of the then National Security Adviser, ONSA under Sambo Dasuki leadership.
Metuh was convicted over his inability to prove that the money he allegedly collected through his companies were meant to prosecute former President Goodluck Jonathan’s election.
