22 APC Senators set to decamp to the opposing party, PDP. The APC, which had previously lost 13 senators to opposition parties before the election, is expected to lose more legislators who were denied return tickets to the National Assembly during the party primaries.
According to reports, party leaders were concerned that if the rate of defections maintained and the opposition PDP gained more members, the ruling party would lose its Senate majority.
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To halt the tide of defections, the APC’s National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, met with APC senators behind closed doors at the National Assembly compound in Abuja shortly after 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
Adamu, who first went to the office of Senate President Ahmed Lawan for a brief meeting.
The party was concerned about the surge of defections among the 22 APC senators, according to the general meeting.
Adamu also stated that he did not know if the party’s defection crisis would endure, but that he had met with his colleagues in the National Assembly and believed the matter was surmountable.
Meanwhile, a lawmaker who spoke on the condition of anonymity to one of our correspondents revealed that the party chairman had to come down to the National Assembly to deter senators from defecting from the ruling APC.
According to the source, at least 22 APC senators planned to defect from the party to other parties, primarily the PDP, within the next week.
The party chairman came to meet with the APC senators because he said they learned through intelligence that not less than 20 more senators were planning to defect to other parties within the next one week, the source added.
Senator Adamu went on to say that the party will next assess what it could do to help the situation. He did, however, state that lawmakers who are dissatisfied with the assistance offered by the parties are free to leave.
It portrays the party as being in disarray and lacking competent leadership. It also claims a wave of defections throughout the APC senate seats.
Six senators have sent their desertion letters in the week since the plenary resumed. Abdullahi claimed that the democratic issues and shortfalls in Kebbi State began in July last year, when the governor illegally decapitated the state leadership of the party, imposed unelected ward, local government, and state executives of the party.
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Adamu Aliero (Kebbi Central), a former governor of Kebbi State, defected from the incumbent APC to the PDP, claiming that his decision was predicated on the fact that there is no internal democracy in the APC.
He said that the state’s governor, Atiku Bagudu, had mutilated the party and electoral processes in the state.
