Mass defection: Details of Buhari’s meeting with aggrieved APC senators emerge

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Abuja met some All Progressives Congress, APC, senators who were aggrieved over the outcome of primary elections in their respective states.

There are indications that some of them are planning to defect to the opposition parties.

The lawmakers, numbering about 22, had vowed to defect from the party over the alleged injustices resulting from lack of internal democracy during the party’s primaries.

Already, seven APC senators, including the immediate past Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi, representing Kebbi North, former governor of Kebbi State, Adamu Aliero, senator representing President Buhari in Katsina North, Ahmad Babba-Kaita; former Kano State governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, among others, have since jumped ships to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP.

There are also indications that the majority of other senators were planning or have concluded plans to leave the ruling APC, which made the national chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, to have a meeting with the caucus in the National Assembly recently.

Leading the delegation to President Buhari at the State House in Abuja, the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, said the lawmakers felt disenfranchised by the process and conduct of the primaries.

Speaking at the meeting, President Buhari urged the senators to exercise restraint in their decision to defect from the APC

The president, while appealing to the lawmakers, said the defections were a threat to the APC’s majority in the National Assembly.

After the meeting, Kalu said the aggrieved Senators would no longer pursue defection from the APC.

“Earlier this afternoon, I led the 22 aggrieved Senators and members of the All Progressives Congress to President Muhammad Buhari, GCFR.

“Our meeting with Mr. President was successful and the issue of decamping from our party has been laid to rest,” the Chief Whip wrote on his social media page

The gradual loss of the majority by APC in the Senate, had created tensions in the ruling party and among patriotic members within and outside the National Assembly.