The All Progressive Congress (APC) still has the majority in the House of Representatives despite the major defection that took place yesterday.
This is according to Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila who spoke to newsmen in Abuja following the major political fallout.
Yesterday, 37 lawmakers defected from the APC with 35 of them moving to PDP and 2 going to ADC while one of the defectors didn’t state what party he was moving to.
This is also following news that 15 Senators also jumped ship yesterday from the APC to the PDP.
Gbajabiamila is also the head of the APC caucus in the House of representatives and he stated that APC still holds the power.
According to Gbajabiamila, PDP needed 60 lawmakers to become the majority but now the APC only lost 37 of its members to the defection, thus still leading with 23 members.
Speaking on the defection, Gbajabiamila said: “I think the bottom line is the search for ticket; this is an election period when you see politicians jumping from one party to another.
“I want to say that in spite of what happened at plenary today, not only that APC remains the majority, but a clear and overwhelming majority, which leaves APC very strong in the House of Representatives,”
According to the House leader, the cause of the defection was the lack of ideology in Nigerian political parties, stating that such a thing doesn’t happen in other countries because in other countries, political parties are more ideological in their make up than in Nigeria and hence most people who are members of the party are there for life.
He said: “We will encourage our party to do the needful. We want to build ideology in our political parties because if we have ideology, you cannot see this kind of cross-carpeting.”