Four Labour Party reps dump party for APC

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.