Twenty-seven members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday changed party platforms with the All Progressives Congress gaining 14 new members and losing two.
Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas, announced this during plenary, expressing worry over two of his colleagues who abandoned APC for the opposition.
With the latest defections, the APC has about 280 members out of the 360-member parliament.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is left with 38 members, African Democratic Congress (ADC) has 15 members, while the Labour Party and the New Nigeria People’s Party have 12 and five members respectively and the Accord and the Action Peoples Party have two members each.
Recall that during the inauguration of the 10th House in June, 2023, the APC had 181 members, while the opposition parties had 179, with the PDP leading with 115 members.
On Tuesday, the House Deputy Spokesman, Philip Agbese, from Benue State left the APC for the LP, attributing his defection to the lingering crisis between Governor Hyacinth Alia and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume. He is the first APC lawmaker to dump the party.
Others who defected are Ademola Akani and Lanre Oladebo Omoleye (PDP to Accord), Ikenga Ugochinyere (PDP, Imo) and Anthony Nwogu (LP, Imo) to APP. Also, the House Deputy Minority Whip, George Ozodinobi, led the defectors from LP to the ADC.
Other members who joined the ADC are Harris Uchenna (LP, Anambra), Yahaya Tongo (PDP, Gombe), Oluwaseyi Sowumi (LP, Lagos), Aliyu Mustapha Abdullahi (APC, Kaduna, who recently defected from PDP to APC), Mani Maishinko (PDP, Sokoto), Abdulsamad Dasuki (PDP, Sokoto) and Umar Yabo (PDP, Sokoto).
Similarly, Mustapha Tijani, Mohammed Shehu, Dankwa Idris, Hassan Shehu, Tanimu Yusuf, Mohammed Ciroma, Sani Madaki, and Tijani Jobe all swapped the NNPP for the APC.
Ja’afaru Yakubu (PDP, Taraba), Sadiq Tafida (PDP, Taraba), Ibrahim Mohammed (PDP, Kebbi) and Hassan Shinkafi (PDP, Zamfara) joined the APC.
In the Senate, Peter Jiya, representing Niger South, on Tuesday dumped the PDP for the APC.
