Four members of the house of representatives have defected
from the Labour Party (LP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house, announced the
lawmakers’ defection on the floor of the green chamber on Thursday.
The lawmakers are Chinedu Okere (Owerri municipal/Owerri
north/Owerri west federal constituency), Mathew Donatus (Kaura federal constituency
of Kaduna), Akiba Bassey (Calabar municipal/Odukpani federal constituency of
Cross River), and Esosa Iyawe (Oredo federal constituency of Edo).
The lawmakers attributed their defection to an alleged
crisis in the LP.
Abbas congratulated the legislators, saying they had “taken
the right decision”.
Erhriatake Ibori-Suenu, who represents Ethiope federal
constituency of Delta, also defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to
the APC.
Ibori-Suenu is the daughter of James Ibori, former Delta
governor and chieftain of the PDP.
Ali Isa, minority whip, and George Ozodinobi, deputy
minority whip, protested the defections.
Ozodinobi, an LP chieftain, said his colleagues had no
ideology.
“When people enter a political party without ideology, you
see such level of defection,” he said.
Ozodinobi said the APC has “brought hunger to Nigerians” and
lawmakers should not be joining the party.
The LP and PDP have lost some legislators to the APC in
recent weeks.
In July, Ezenwa Onyewuchi, senator representing Imo east,
defected from LP to the APC.
In October, Chris Nkwonta and Sulaiman Abubakar left the PDP
for APC.
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