Nigerian Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, on Tuesday jokingly said that the African Democratic Congress (ADC) was dead following a fresh wave of defections that saw lawmakers move en masse to other political parties, including the Nigerian Democratic Congress and the Labour Party.
Akpabio made the remark while presiding over plenary, shortly after the Senate formally announced the defection of lawmakers, including Victor Umeh, who joined the NDC, citing internal crises and “unending litigation” within the ADC.
“Maybe all those defecting from ADC should just compile everything in one paper and bring, so that we don’t keep announcing, announcing, announcing. Because I think ADC is dead.
“How many times can you defect in a month? Once. But some have done three times.
“So that it doesn’t look like a daily ritual. If you are defecting from Labour, you write all of you. If you are moving from ADC, you write all of you. If you are entering NDC, you write all of you,” he laughed.
At the sitting, Akpabio also read a defection letter from Enyinnaya Abaribe, noting his movement across parties in recent years.
“Note that Senator Abaribe has moved from APGA to ADC, and now he has moved from ADC to Labour Party,” he said, before joking that future announcements would no longer be read individually.
The comments come amid a fresh political realignment in the National Assembly, where no fewer than 16 members of the House of Representatives have also defected from the ADC to the NDC, among them are Yusuf Datti, Uchenna Okonkwo, Thaddeus Attah, George Ozodinobi, and Lilian Orogbu.