June 22, (THEWILL) – Following the gale of defections from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to opposition parties, the National Chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, on Wednesday, visited the National Assembly to hold an emergency meeting with members of APC lawmakers.
Adamu, THEWILL gathered, was at the National Assembly to appeal to lawmakers to halt the gale of defections from the APC, adding that all their grievances arising from party primaries would be addressed.
The just-concluded party primaries had seen a good number of lawmakers who wanted to return to the National Assembly losing party tickets.
A source at the meeting disclosed that lawmakers used the opportunity of Senator Adamu’s visit to express their grievances over the alleged lack of internal democracy at state level of the party.
THEWILL gathered that at the peak of APC in the Senate, the party can boast of 70 members, but shortly after the primaries, no less than 8 lawmakers have defected to opposition parties.
While addressing newsmen after the meeting, Adamu, said he is worried about the gale of defections of his members to opposition parties.
He, however, said, defections rocking the APC were seasonal and normal, stressing that all manner of behaviours are expected at this time.
The APC boss said he was undeterred about the ugly development but cared much about the APC under his leadership.
He said: “It is an unfortunate development when it happens, but this is a season for all manner of behaviours in the political space in the country and Nigeria is not an exception.
“In every election year, this kind of thing gives cause for stakeholders to sneeze and Nigeria is not an exception, so the APC is not an exception. I don’t care about what is happening in other parties, my focus is on the APC.
“But we all know that the occurrence is not only happening in the APC. It’s happening across other political parties too. And because we are the ruling party, our problems are exaggerated before the public.
“There is no responsible leader that would not be worried when he loses one member not to talk of two. At the moment we are faced with the stark reality of our problems.
“My colleagues and I at the National Working Committee of the APC are committed to face the problem squarely and see the problem as solvable.”
On how to stem the issue of injustice being raised by some of the defectors, he said: “You have no guarantee, we are in politics for God’s sake. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. How can I foresee tomorrow? I am not the person who saw tomorrow.”
Adamu said he doesn’t know if the problem of defection would continue but believes the issue is surmountable since he has met with the senators.
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