Ruling
party’s senators, other may join ex-VP
President
Muhammadu Buhari yesterday sympathized with the National Chairman
of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) Chief John Odigie-Oyegun in mockery of the exit of
former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, from the ruling party.
At the
inauguration of a 30-member panel to renegotiate the national minimum wage for
workers at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Buhari said to
Odigie-Oyegun: “Accept my sympathy for losing a senior member of your party” in
an apparent reference to Atiku who last week announced his resignation from
the APC.
Although
Buhari did not mention Atiku’s name, the former vice president is the latest
senior member of the APC to have dumped the party. Atiku last week specifically
announced that he was dumping the party for its failure to fulfil its promises
to Nigerians.
Also, during
a photo session with members of the panel shortly after the inauguration,
President Buhari threw another banter, this time at the governor of Osun State,
Rauf Aregbesola.
He jokingly
asked the governor why he did not dress like his Kebbi State counterpart, Atiku
Bagudu. Buhari pointed to the armed forces remembrance emblem on the chest of
Bagudu which was missing on Aregbesola’s dress.
Atiku was
one of those who contested the party’s presidential ticket ahead of the 2015
general elections and lost to Buhari.
His letter
of resignation from APC dated October 18, 2017, read in part: “I wish to inform
you of my decision to resign my membership of the APC in this ward with effect
from the date of this letter.
“I’m
resigning from a party we formed and worked so hard, with fellow compatriots
across the country, to place in government.
“I’m unable
to reconcile myself with the dismal performance of the party in government,
especially in relation to the continued polarisation of our people along ethnic
and religious lines, which is threatening our unity more than any other time in
the recent past, and the unbearable hardship that our people are currently
undergoing.”
Meanwhile,
some senators elected on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform have
started reaching out to their colleagues in the APC to boost Atiku’s defection
to the PDP.
It was
learnt that the bid to bring APC senators to the PDP, which is being
coordinated by a lawmaker from a South-South geo-political zone, has started
generating issues in the upper chamber.
Chairman of
the Senate Committee on Ethics, Sam Anyanwu (PDP, Imo State), told The Guardian
yesterday that there was nothing wrong in the move to get the APC senators into
PDP. He said more people, including governors, former governors and ministers
would soon defect to the PDP.
Anyanwu
declared that it was the natural right of any senator to move to wherever he
wants. “You know that in party politics, these are senators, you can’t dictate
for them where they will go.”
According to
him, there is no need to even persuade the senators to change party in view of
the fact that the APC has not done well. “It is their right to move to any
party they wish just like people have been defecting to APC,” he noted.
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