Days after joining APC, Top Nigerian politician gets federal appointment
Mr Hunkuyi was the senator for the Kaduna North district between 2015 and 2019.
Five days after formally defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC), former Kaduna senator Suleiman Hunkuyi has secured a federal appointment.
Mr Hunkuyi was appointed as a member of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) representing the North West region.
President Bola Tinubu also appointed Saviour Enyiekere, an aide of Senate President Godswill Akpabio, as the chairman of the commission, alongside 11 other members.
Hunkuyi political trajectory
Mr Hunkuyi was the senator for the Kaduna North district between 2015 and 2019 as a member of the APC.
He left the party after joining the two other senators from the state in opposing a request by the then-Governor Nasir El-Rufai for Senate approval of a foreign loan for the state.
Abdu Kwari took his ticket in the 2019 APC primaries, with another APC senator, Shehu Sani of the Kaduna Central district, also being replaced by now Governor Uba Sani.
On February 16, Governor Sani received 50 opposition party members into the APC, including returnees Messrs Hunkuyi and Shehu Sani, and former Governor Ramalan Yero.
Mr Hunkuyi was the NNPP candidate in the 2023 governorship election. He has a history of switching allegiances whenever he disagrees with the government.
In 2003, he decamped to the ANPP to run in the general election against his then ally and governor of the state, Ahmed Makarfi.
He later returned to the PDP after stints in the CPC and the APC.
His return to the APC signals that he has joined forces with the APC State government.
Hassan Mohammed, an APC member, told PREMIUM TIMES he was not surprised by Mr Hunkuyi’s appointment.
“I am not surprised by the appointment, and I congratulate him on it. But we all know Hunkuyi will decamp again after this government. That is not a new thing about him.”
