The meeting between Godswill Akpabio and President Buhari which took place in London was one that the PDP was unaware of according to the party.
The Senate minority leader has been mooted to defect to the APC on Thursday when he is set to be received by Vice-President Osinbajo.
According to the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, the Senator stated that he was travelling to Germany and that the meeting with Buhari was a surprising one.
He said: “He told us he was going to Germany and if he ended up in London, maybe, he had a technical stopover.
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“The PDP has no issues with Akpabio whatsoever and the party will not respond to speculations of his readiness to defect. We have no notice of the said defection and all I can say now is that we will cross the bridge when we get there.”
According to the Punch, while the defection of Akpabio was a surprise for most people, the rumours of a possible move had been bouncing around the gossip halls of the PDP for a while.
The Punch reports that a Governor, whose name has been withheld, had accused the former Akwa-Ibom Governor of cavorting with the enemy at the residence of the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, recently.
This was at the time when Ekweremadu had come under fire from the EFCC who had laid siege to his house. The governor had come out to tackle Akpabio accusing him of meeting with APC leaders.
According to a source for the Punch, he said; “We were all surprised with the governor from the southern part of the country, who accused him (Akpabio) of playing a double game. He asked why Akpabio had refused to speak out for the party of recent and why he had been absent at party’s events.
“We all knew that Akpabio was actually meeting with APC leaders at night, and laughing with us during the day. But we didn’t know how to handle it.
“Akpabio, however, refused to speak to the governor. Rather, he was just smiling, even though he seemed not to be enjoying the talk.
“The DSP (Ekweremadu) tried to calm the said governor down, but you know he is very outspoken. He said it without fear or favour, that he knew that he was saying.”