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updated 10:20 AM UTC, Dec 13, 2023

Nigeria: Mass Defection Of APC Lawmakers’ In The National Assembly, Party Loses Majority

Unic Press UK: Fourteen elected Senators under the platform of the ruling party in Nigeria, the All Progressives Congress (APC), have defected, thereby causing the party to lose the majority in the upper chamber of the bicameral legislature.

Prior to the plenary session today, there were attempts by the State security agents to restrict the movement of the Senate President Bukola Saraki in a manner suggesting a plot to undermine his leadership; and probably unseat or impeach, but he eventually made his way to the National Assembly.

It is still unclear how Saraki managed to evade the ‘battalion’ of policemen and other State security agents that barricaded his official residence for several hours starting in the early hours of today.

The [DSP] Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu faced a similar ‘Gestapo’ situation. In his case, Ekweremadu, who was billed to preside at today’s plenary to enable Saraki honour police summons in relation to a criminal investigation, did not make it to the Senate chambers. The Senate President Saraki said today at plenary:

“As you know the seat of the DSP, Ike Ekweremadu is absent. He cannot get out of his house. He is being held under seige. As we are speaking, our DSP cannot leave the house. We must save this democracy. People have free association. They can even move tomorrow. I am sitting here and 16 members have decamped or defected to one party to another and there has been no seige. So we had a situation where the Deputy Senate President could not come here and i was already going to report to the Police, so plenary would not have been able to hold today, for that reason, i had to come here to hold place.”

As of today, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is the majority party in the Senate with 56 Senators.

In the 109-Senate seats, there are currently 107 Senators as two senatorial zones have no representative since the death of 2.

The Senate adjourned plenary to Tuesday the 25 September, 2018.

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