Mass Defections Hit LP, PDP
No fewer than four lawmakers from the Labour Party (LP) and one member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaker Tajudeen Abbas announced their defection during the plenary.
The lawmakers from the Labour Party are Hon. Chinedu Okere (Owerri Municipal/Owerri North/Owerri West Federal Constituency), Hon. Mathew Donatus (Kaura Federal Constituency of Kaduna), Hon. Akiba Bassey (Calabar Municipal/Odukpani Federal Constituency of Cross River), and Hon. Esosa Iyawe (Oredo Federal Constituency of Edo).
Hon. Abbas congratulated the legislators, saying they had “taken the right decision.”
The defected members, while giving their reasons for defection, explained that the ideologies of the APC aligned with their own. They also cited faction, division, and crises within their previous parties.
Among the defected members is the daughter of a former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori.
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The minority whip, Hon. Ali Isa, and the deputy minority whip, Hon. George Ozodinobi, protested the defections. Ozodinobi, an LP chieftain, said his colleagues had no ideology.
“When people enter a political party without ideology, you see such levels of defection,” Hon. Ozodinobi said.
In recent times, LP and PDP have lost some legislators to the APC. In July, Ezenwa Onyewuchi, senator representing Imo East, defected from LP to the APC. In October, Chris Nkwonta and Sulaiman Abubakar left the PDP for the APC.
