Senator Emmanuel Bwacha(Taraba South) on Tuesday, dumped his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Bwacha announced his decision on the floor of the Senate during plenary.
This is just as the National Chairman of PDP, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, wrote the Senate, forwarding the name of Senator Shuaibu Isa Lau(PDP Taraba North) as the new Senate Deputy Minority Leader.
President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, who read the letter on Tuesday during plenary, said that the party’s National Working Committee, NWC, submitted the name of Lau to replace Bwacha as Deputy Senate Minority Leader.
‘Why I left PDP’
On his resignation, Senator Bwacha said he left the PDP because he wanted to operate in an atmosphere of open competition and also because of what he described as the huge division and factionalisation of his party in his home state.
He said that there is presence of APC in his Senatorial District of Taraba State.
In his remarks, the President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, said that with the latest development, APC has 70 Senators; PDP, 38, while the Young Progressives Party, YPP, has one.
Meanwhile, the President of the Senate ruled Senator George Sekibo(PDP, Rivers East) out of order.
Sekibo had earlier raised a Constitutional point of order, citing Section 68 of 1999 Constitution as amended, challenging Bwacha of not having genuine reasons to leave the PDP against the backdrop that there was no crisis in the party.