Kogiflame
About 192 National Assembly members are plotting to defect from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other opposition party after some of them lost out in the ruling party’s primaries.
This was made known in a ‘Report on the Actualisation of the Presidency of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the Coming 2023 General Election’ by the Planning and Strategy Committee of the Tinubu Campaign Organisation headed by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal.
The committee’s report was signed by 22 of its 23, with a former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu, the only member who did not sign.
According to The PUNCH, other members of the committee included a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; serving senators Opeyemi Bamidele, Ishaku Abbo, Grace Bent and Basiru Ajibola; member of the House of Reps, Musa Sarkin-Adar, Komsol Longgap and Olawale Raji; former senators Adesoji Akanbi, Abu Ibrahim and Magnus Abe.
Others were the Director-General, Tinubu Support Group, Umar Mohammed; Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State, Silas Agara; former deputy governor of Lagos State (under Tinubu), Femi Pedro; Safaa Adam; Amina Indala; Kashim Imam; Akin Awodeyi-Akinseyiwa; Saadatu Garba; Abubakar Sanusi and M.T Usman.
The Babachir-led committee asked President Muhammadu Buhari, Bola Tinubu and others to stop the defection of the lawmakers.
The report of the committee partly read, “Defecting to other parties is quite common during electioneering but it is more worrisome for this election as a lot of influential members feel aggrieved with the processes of the elections.
“There is a need to reach out to the principal officers of the National Assembly and the party leadership at the national, state, zonal and local government levels to mitigate and assuage the aggrieved persons.
“It is worrisome that 22 serving senators and 170 National Assembly members are set to defect from the APC. There is no doubt that this can weaken our strength and there is an urgent need for intervention from the President, our presidential candidate, governors, leaders of the National Assembly, the APC national, state, zonal and local working committees as well as influential party stakeholders.”
