By George Mgbeleke
\nAs 2027 general elections draws close, the former largest political party in the country,Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) its Caucus in the Senate has dwindled to 14 Senators given the official defection of three of its members to All Progressives Congress (APC) on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The three Senators whose letters were read during plenary were Amos Yunana ( Adamawa North), Aminu Iya Abbas ( Adamawa Central ) and Ikra Aliyu Bilbis ( Zamfara Central ) .
\nDefections of the three Senators which came twenty four hours after that of Senator Banigo Ipalibo ( Rivers West ) from the same PDP to APC on Tuesday , depleted its membership in the Senate from 17 to 14 and increased those on the platform of APC from 81 to 84 .<\/p>\n
Trilled by the development, the President of the Senate , Godswill Akpabio in his remarks after the defectors were moved from the left side of Aisle to the right side in the chamber , said it was unprecendented since 1960 when Nigeria became Independent.<\/p>\n
According to him , the gale of defections hitting the rank of the PDP Senators into APC currently is the opposite of what happened in the 8th Senate precisely in 2018 when APC lost many of its Senators to PDP including the then , President of the Senate , Senator Bukola Saraki .<\/p>\n
” To me what is happening now between PDP and APC Senators is more of 1 – 1 draw because in 2018 during the 8th National Assembly , about 30 Senators in one day defected from APC to PDP .<\/p>\n
” Now during the 10th National Assembly , it is the other way round , PDP Senators are the ones defecting in multitude into APC for obvious reasons of good governance being rendered at the centre by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who has rescured the Nation’s economy from bankruptcy to buoyancy with very bold decisions and reforms “, he said .<\/p>\n
Earlier in his comments, the leader of the Senate , Senator Micheal Opeyemi Bamidele ( Ekiti Central ) , said the continuous defection of Senators from PDP and other minority parties into APC clearly shows that the Nigeria project is working under President Tinubu .<\/p>\n
” The defectors are not daft . They have seen that something is working in the country for the good of all , which they believe , must be among the active participants within the APC caucus “, he said .<\/p>\n
The configuration of Senators on the platform of political parties now as against what it was in June 2023 when the 10th National Assembly started are APC 84 from 59, PDP 14 from 36 , Labour Party zero from 8, NNPP 1 from 2, SDP zero from 2 and APGA 1. <\/p>\n
The African Democratic Congress ( ADC ) which had no Senator at the beginning of the 10th National Assembly in June 2023 , now has 5 while the newly defecting in multitude Nigeria Democratic Congress ( NDC) has 1 in person of Senator Seriake Dickson ( Bayelsa West).<\/p>\n
The total number of serving senators now are 106 as against the constitutional 109 . <\/p>\n
The remaining three seats are those of Nasarawa North which became vacant as result of death of Senator Godiya Akwashiki , Enugu North which also became vacant due to death of Senator Okechukwu Ezea and Rivers South East which became vacant due to demise of Senator Barinada Mpigi .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke As 2027 general elections draws close, the former largest political party in the country,Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) its Caucus in the Senate has dwindled to 14 Senators given the official defection of three of its members to All Progressives Congress (APC) on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday. The three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6247,6248],"class_list":["post-11717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-defecting","tag-multitude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11719,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11717\/revisions\/11719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}