17 Senators Expected to Dump PDP for APC This Week

Seventeen Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators are ready to join the All Progressives Congress (APC), during this week.

apc-vc-pdpOne of the senators defecting, Bindowo Jibrilla, PDP, Adamawa North, disclosed defection plans in an interview to BBC Hausa on January 19, 2014, Sunday.

He said the defecting senators will communicate their plans through separate letters to the Senate President, David Mark, shortly after resumption from recess.

The 17 senators are among the 22 others who had indicated their interest to join the APC before the Christmas and New Year break began.

He said he had already led the way by joining APC, saying he would announce it immediately after Senate resumption, after which others will follow.

Senator Jibrilla boasted that the PDP would suffer for the maltreatment it gave to the governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, and other governors that defected from the party in December 2013.

“The same thing that forced our governors out is what will force us, the affected federal lawmakers out of the party. In the case of Adamawa, the elderly man (Governor Nyako) brought three senators and six House of Representatives to PDP as one of its leading lights but was maltreated and forced out,” he said.

According to Vanguard, the list of defecting senators may include:

Bukola Saraki (Kwara), Shaaba Lafiagi (Kwara), Magnus Abe (Rivers), Wilson Ake (Rivers), Basheer Mohammed (Kano), Hayatu Gwarzo (Kano), Umar Abubakar Tutare (Taraba), Aisha Jummai Alhassan (Taraba), Senator Danjuma Goje (Gombe central), Adamu Abdullahi (Nasarawa West) and the entire three PDP senators from Sokoto state.

However, this assertion was countered by the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who said in an interview the PDP was bent on defending its majority in the Senate and winning back what it lost in the House of Representatives.

“We have seen some of these movements before, we are not worried. In the Senate, for instance, I’m not expecting that anybody will leave PDP in the Senate; it is unlikely. Senate is well coordinated and we are strongly behind PDP in the Senate.”