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Former Plateau State Governor, Joshua Chibi Dariye has joined the All Progressives Congress [APC].
Mr. Dariye assumed office as the Governor of Plateau State, Nigeria on May 29, 1999 on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party [PDP].
He was re-elected for another four-year term starting in May 2003, and was impeached in November 2006.
Dariye is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC], on a 23-count charge bordering on money laundering and diversion of funds before Justice Adebukola Banjoko.
He is alleged to have siphoned the state’s ecological fund to the tune of N1.162 billion.
Dariye a Senator from PDP representing Plateau State based his defection on current crisis between Ahmed Makarfi-led faction and Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the party.
In a letter read by Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki said his followers in the Plateau state left the party because protracted crisis at the National headquarter of the party.
Recently, Peter Clark, a retired detective constable with the UK Metropolitan Police, on May 9, 2016, had told a Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, sitting in Gudu, Abuja, that Dariye is still wanted in the United Kingdom for money laundering charges.
Clark gave a blow-by-blow account of how £11,560 cash found on Christopher Mekwunye, an aide of Dariye, who is allegedly involved in a credit card fraud, was traced to the former governor, making him a suspect of money laundering.
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Led in evidence by prosecuting counsel, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), Clark told the court that Mekwunye had under interrogation confessed that the money was given to him to deposit on behalf of Dariye into his Barclays Bank account.
He said: “In 2004, officers of the Met Police involved in investigating a large credit card fraud had, during search of a number of houses, found the cash on Christopher Mekwunye at 127 Chilton House, Portland Street, SW London.
“I asked him about Dariye and he told me that he was a politician and governor of Plateau State in Nigeria.
“I then left him with the other officers working on the credit card fraud and made several inquiries with the Barclays Bank, where they informed me that Dariye was a customer with the bank with an account that was operated in a suspicious way.”
Clark , who retired on March 9, 2015 after 28 years in service, thereafter, obtained a court order to enable him obtain more information about the said account.
Political observers allege that Dariye joined the APC to escaped the wrath of the law which has been on his trail for some time now.
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