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The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has said it looks like the African Democratic Congress, ADC, is dead.
Akpabio made the remark on Tuesday following the wave of defections by lawmakers from ADC to other political parties, especially the National Democratic Congress, NDC, and the Labour Party, LP.
He was presiding over plenary after the Senate announced the defection of lawmakers such as Victor Umeh, who joined NDC.
Akpabio said: “Resignation from ADC and declaration for Labour Party. 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.
Read also: Peter Obi, Kwankwaso Defection Still Under Probability – NDC
“How many times can you defect in a month? Once. But some have done three times.”
He suggested a compilation of names based on defection choices instead of individual announcement “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.
“Note that Senator Abaribe has moved from APGA to ADC, and now he has moved from ADC to Labour Party,” he joked.
Also, recall that the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, witnessed a wave of defections as no fewer than 17 lawmakers formally announced their exit from ADC to the National Democratic Congress, NDC, during plenary, citing internal crises within their former party.
The defectors, who cut across Kano, Anambra, Lagos, Edo and Rivers states, read separate letters on the floor of the House.
They attributed their decision to what they described as “unresolved crises from the national to ward levels” in the ADC.
The Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Bolaji Abdullahi, has said he is unhappy over the decision of the former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, and his Kano counterpart, Rabiu Kwankwaso, to dump the party.
In an interview with Arise TV on Monday, Bolaji said Obi and Kwankwaso’s defection was a setback for the ADC.
He, however, said their resignation from the party gave the ADC relief to focus on what it ought to do.
He said, “Personally, I’m not happy that Peter Obi and Kwankwaso left the ADC, but in a way, it’s a bit of a relief.
“Is this a setback? The answer is yes. Is it a fatal blow? The answer is no.”
The Eastern Updates reports that Obi and Kwankwaso formally dumped the ADC for the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday.
Peter Obi has changed parties again, and this time he brought Rabiu Kwankwaso with him. The two opposition heavyweights formally joined the Nigeria Democratic Congress on Sunday in Abuja, collecting membership cards amid supporter chants and the kind of choreographed optimism that has accompanied each of Obi’s previous political relocations — from APGA to PDP to Labour to ADC, and now to a party most Nigerians were not closely watching until Sunday afternoon changed that.
Obi’s explanation was consistent with what he has said at each previous departure: the crisis follows him rather than originates with him. He accused the federal government of deliberately seeding instability inside opposition platforms, engineering litigation and internal conflict to keep credible challengers perpetually distracted. “The government of today has ensured that they put up crisis upon crisis, which led to several lawsuits in our party that made us abandon those parties,” he told those gathered at Sunday’s reception. He described the ADC, which he had joined only last December, as a repeat of the Labour Party experience — same dysfunction, different letterhead.
