Chief Dele Momodu, the publisher of Ovation magazine and former presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP), has denied reports making round that he had defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress on the basis of a pursuit for a ministerial position in the president’s cabinet.

Momodu stated on Monday, November 30, that he did not defect to the APC in search of a ministerial appointment, noting that the views of some individuals that his recent open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari was informed by the fact he did not make the ministerial list was very unfortunate, Today online media reports.

The former presidential aspirant had in the letter published on one of the national dailies stated that Nigerians were expecting the president to fix the country as the APC had promised during the electioneering campaigns prior to the March 28 presidential election.

Negating the views and tongue-lashing on him, the publisher noted that it was not the first time he had written an open letter to the president, adding that he had written several open letters to the president before he constituted his cabinet.

He said, “I never requested to be made a minister. I never defected from the NCP to the APC in anticipation of a ministerial appointment. I even wrote in my column ahead of the cabinet announcement that those mentioning my name as a nominee missed the point. And I gave reasons why it won’t fly. Why do we read meaning to every action? I wrote a simple and objective letter to my president and I’m sure he appreciates such a gesture.”

Speaking further, Momodu also said he was being disturbed both at home and abroad by those who knew of his faith in President Buhari to turn things around in the country, stressing that it was his responsibility as a volunteer in the Buhari campaign to keep the president informed at all times.

The publisher said that based on this kind of open letter to President Buhari, those who had always accused him of hating the immediate past president Goodluck Jonathan would now know that he wrote the letters to him at that time out of his passion for Nigeria.

Momodu said: “It was what I promised to do when he invited me to Aso Villa for a meeting and I gave him a special compilation of my admonitions to the former president Goodluck Jonathan. Whatever you do in life, people must complain. I wrote letters publicly to Jonathan; why can’t I write to President Buhari? I’m a journalist before being a politician. I realised that leaders often react quicker to what is in the public domain than when it is made private.”

Paul Nwachukwu, the media adviser to the former minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has alleged that the clamour from Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) that the ex-minister be probed over management of the Abacha loot is politically sponsored.