Defection Of Rep Members: PDP Luring Opposition Members With Millions Of Dollars – APC

apc-logoThe All Progressives Congress, APC, has reacted to Tuesday’s defection of five of its members in the House of Representatives to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, saying irrespective of the alleged inducements by the ruling PDP to their legislators, nothing would stop the change that is coming.

The five House members, who defected back to the PDP, yesterday were Reps. Lawal Shehu Bichi, Kano; Abdulsalam Adamu, Kano; Sani Umar, Zamfara; Ibrahim Shehu Gusau, Zamfara; and Umar Bature, Sokoto.
Information Nigeria recalls that Bature was one of the 37 PDP lawmakers, who defected to the APC on December 18, last year, but, yesterday, he again moved back to the party alongside his four others colleagues.

With yesterday’s development, the move by APC to change the House leadership suffered a major blow as it widened the margin between the PDP and the APC. The PDP now has 178 members, while the APC has 168.

But the opposition party in a statement issued by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said the PDP, in a show of desperation, rolled out an enticement package that promised $2 million (N328 million) to each Senator who returns to the PDP; $1 million (N164 million) to a member of the House of Representatives, and $10 million (N1.64 billion) to a “leader” who abandons the APC for PDP. It claimed that the price tag for the federal legislators from Rivers State was even higher – $5 million (N821 million) each.

The opposition party, however, said no amount of inducement would stop the wind of change that is already blowing as the “long-suffering people of Nigeria are ready and eager to vote out the PDP next year”.

The party said the five House of Representatives members, who have taken the PDP’s killer bait when they defected to the APC, were neither forced to do so nor given any incentive beyond the rare opportunity offered them to be a part of the looming change and described them as “dirty traitors”.

“Nigerians can now see why their country has gone broke; why the allocation to states from the Federation Account has continued to dwindle, and why infrastructure has either remained decrepit or non-existent. It is not difficult to imagine the number of boreholes that 10 million dollars can sink, or how far such a huge amount will go in building cottage hospitals and health clinics.

“Things are bound to get worse in the days ahead because the desperate PDP will, more and more, use public funds to try to change the course of history. We therefore urge Nigerians to remain resolute in the face of what will be a wave of inducements never before seen in these climes, because there is no going back on the plan to vote out the PDP next year”.