Senate President Godswill Akpabio joked on Tuesday that the African Democratic Congress was virtually dead following a new round of defections that saw senators join other political parties such as the Nigerian Democratic Congress and the Labour Party.
Akpabio made the comment while presiding over plenary, just after the Senate announced the defection of members, including Victor Umeh, to the NDC, citing internal conflicts and “unending litigation” within the ADC.
“Resignation from ADC and declaration for the Labour Party. Maybe all those defecting from ADC should just compile everything in one paper and bring it so that we don’t keep announcing, announcing, announcing. Because I think ADC is dead,” Akpabio said, drawing reactions in the chamber.
He continued in a lighter tone, questioning the frequency of political defections among parliamentarians.
“How many times can you defect in a month? Once. But some have done it three times,” he laughed.
The former Akwa Ibom State governor suggested a more coordinated system for handling defections, adding that lawmakers should “compile” their movement lists rather than announce them individually on the floor.
“So that it doesn’t look like a daily ritual. If you are defecting from labor, you write all of them. If you are moving from ADC, you write all of it. If you are entering NDC, you write all of yourself,” he added.
During the sitting, Akpabio also read a defection letter from Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe, noting his movement across parties in recent years.
“Note that Senator Abaribe has moved from APGA to ADC, and now he has moved from ADC to the Labour Party,” he said, before joking that future announcements would no longer be read individually.
The statements came amid a new political realignment in the National Assembly, with no fewer than 16 members of the House of Representatives defecting from the ADC to the NDC.
Yusuf Datti, Uchenna Okonkwo, Thaddeus Attah, George Ozodinobi, Lilian Orogbu, and other lawmakers have defected, according to an announcement made on the floor of the Green Chamber.
In his resignation letter to the Senate, Umeh cited “lingering divisions in the leadership and unending litigation” in the ADC, saying the situation made continued membership untenable.
“I remain committed to making my contributions towards the development of our dear nation, but this time through the NDC,” he wrote.
