As the House of Representatives resumed plenary from the Eid-el-Fitr break on Tuesday, no fewer than 29 members have defected from their erstwhile political parties.
The defections have seen the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which maintains a comfortable majority in the House gaining 15 lawmakers, despite losing two.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is the leading opposition party, now has 37 members, as the the African Democratic Congress (ADC) increased its membership to 17, while the Labour Party now has 11 lawmakers.
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), which initially had 18 members, has seen its numbers dwindle to five. Accord Party and the Action Peoples Party (APP) now have two members each.
This marks a significant shift from the composition at the inauguration of the 10th Assembly of the House on June 23, 2023, when the APC held about 181 seats against the opposition’s 179, with the PDP alone accounting for 115 members.
Among the key defectors were the Deputy Spokesman of the House, Phillip Agbese, who dumped the APC for the Labour Party, citing the protracted political crisis in Benue state, becoming the first lawmaker elected on the APC platform in the current Assembly to defect to a minority party.
Also, Ademola Akani and Lanre Oladebo Omoleye defected from the PDP to Accord Party, while Ikenga Ugochinyere, formally of PDP and Anthony Nwogu formally of Labour Party joining the APP, as Deputy Minority Whip, George Ozodinnobi, led a group of lawmakers from the Labour Party to the ADC, among others.
