By George Mgbeleke <\/p>\n
The Nigerian Senate was on Thursday engulfed in heated argument following the rejection of Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe\u2019s defection to the African Democratic Congress, (ADC )from the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA) along with eight other Senators that dumped the original political parties for ADC. <\/p>\n
The decampees Senators to ADC)are( 1),Former governor of Sokoto state,Senator Waziri Aminu Tambuwa (PDP Sokoto South ,(2) Sen.Enyinnaya Abaribe ( APGA Abia-South),(3)Sen Victor Umeh (LP Anambra Central),(4) Sen Tony Nwoye (LP Anambra North),(5) Sen Onawo Mohammed Ogoshi (PDP Nasarawa South)<\/p>\n
Others include(6) Sen.Akor Bundu ( PDP Abia Central),(7) Sen. Usman Lawal Adamu,( PDP Kaduna Central(8) Sen Ireti Kingibe ( LP FCT),(9)
\nBinas Dauda Yaroe ( PDP Adamawa North East)<\/p>\n
Former governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Dickson Seriaka representing PDP Bayelsa West defected to Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC)<\/p>\n
Apparently latching on the lacuna , the Senate leadership , took up Abaribe on why the afore stated section should not be invoked against him and invariably declaring his seat ( Abia South ) , vacant .<\/p>\n
Specifically as directed by the President of the Senate , Godswill Akpabio, his Deputy , Senator Barau Jibrin ( Kano North ) , rose through order 20 of the Senate’s standing rule to puncture Abaribe’s defection from APGA which according to him , has no division or crisis at the National level .<\/p>\n
” Mr President as directed by you , I ‘ve gone through the letters forwarded to you and read by you on defections of the Nine Senators from some minority parties into ADC but strongly observed that one of the parties ( APGA) where Abaribe defected from , is not engulfed by any crisis or divisions , particularly at the National level . <\/p>\n
” Abaribe’s defection , as clearly stated in section 68 ( 1b and g ) of the 1999 constitution as amended , is clearly against the provisions of the law and warrants you to do the needful as far as Abia South Senatorial seat is concerned “, he said. <\/p>\n
” The section states : (1) A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if – (a) he becomes a member of another legislative house.<\/p>\n
(b) any other circumstances arise that, if he were not a member of the Senate or the House of Representatives, would cause him to be disqualified for election as a member;<\/p>\n
(g) If he\/ she defects from the political party that sponsored him for the election without the party having divisions . ” <\/p>\n
The President of the Senate accordingly called on Abaribe to respond to observation made against his defection .<\/p>\n
Abaribe in his response tacitly admitted that APGA is not divided but disclosed that the party sacked him as a member since September 2025 and that since one must belong to a political party to be in the Senate , he decided to defect to APC .<\/p>\n
Apparently dissatisfied with Abaribe’s response , the leader of the Senate , Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele ( Ekiti Central) , in his submission , said the purported sacking of Abaribe from APGA in September last year , is even enough ground for his seat to be declared vacant as stated in section 68 ( 1b ) of the 1999 constitution <\/p>\n
Consequently the President of the Senate in his ruling , gave Abaribe one week to either withdraw his letter of defection or come with convincing reason <\/p>\n
Meanwhile , Senator Seriake Dickson ( Bayelsa West) , who founded and defected to Nigeria Democratic Party ( NDC ) last week from PDP , officialized it Thursday through a letter read on his behalf by the Akpabio .<\/p>\n
The gale of defections has made ADC to be the main opposition in the Senate now with 9 Senators , depleting PDP to 7, while APGA remains 1, NNPP 1, and NDC 1 , which when added to 87 Senators controlled by APC now , totals 106 . <\/p>\n
Three seata i e , Nasarawa North , Enugu North and Rivers South East are vacant due deaths of the affected Senators .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke The Nigerian Senate was on Thursday engulfed in heated argument following the rejection of Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe\u2019s defection to the African Democratic Congress, (ADC )from the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA) along with eight other Senators that dumped the original political parties for ADC. The decampees Senators to ADC)are( 1),Former governor of […]<\/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":[6260,6259,6261],"class_list":["post-11757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-declaring","tag-invariably","tag-officialized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757","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=11757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11758,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11757\/revisions\/11758"}],"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=11757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}