From Yakubu Busari, Jos
The gale of defection sweeping across the All Progressives Congress, APC, has set the lawmakers in Plateau state on edge.
Wednesday defection by the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, allegedly because of the bad blood arising from the prolonged supremacy battle between him and Senator George Akume, leader of the party in the state, is said to have set the Plateau lawmakers in the neighbouring state thinking.
Some of the legislators have had long standing, unresolved issues with the party on the one hand and the governor, Simon Lalong, on the other. They complain of Lalong’s aloof style of leadership and his preference for zoning formula to select candidates and members for office.
Hoping to reap from the disaffection among the lawmakers, the rAPC has teamed up with its sister nPDP to initiate the process of wooing the disaffected lawmakers and the ruling party members from across the 17 Local Government Areas of the state ahead 2019 general elections.
Information available to Thisage reveals that aggrieved members want to defect in protest over what they see as imposition of members in total disregard of the interests of those who defected earlier last year from the opposition PDP.
It was gathered the former Deputy Speaker, Yusuf Adamau Babayo Gagdi who had since defection to the APC, is still licking his wounds and in regret over his defection from PDP.
According to sources, the former Deputy Speaker is having a sleepless night because of the way and manner the APC stalwarts openly accused him and frustrated him in the House until he was finally impeached and replaced.
The second issue is the inability of the party to redeem its promises of access to goodies of the new comers to the ruling party to then.
” These affected who were all elected members on the platform of PDP but later lured with promises to defect APC in the hope of getting the change the government promised, but today they are singing Not Yet Uhuru “, said a source close to the aggrieved lawmakers.
The drama took a different dimension when the APC leadership in the state insisted on the change in the leadership of Majority leader Hon Jonathan Daniel, another defector.
And when at the sitting on Wednesday the majority leader, Daniel resigned base on the rezoning arrangement by the party, the proverbial bone of the camel’s back was broken.
In the attempt to stop the issue from further polarizing the party, the leadership of the House postponed discussion on the issue of majority leader to a later date, but information revealed that some few members have allegedly compromised their stand and turned their against Daniel when automatic ticket as compensation, as part of the National leadership reaction to the defections, was dangled before them.
The few days ahead promise to be full of drama, particularly with the meeting between President Buhari and the Senators elected on the party’s platform on Wednesday night. It led to two of the defected Senators retracing their steps. They are Senators Lanre Tejuoso(Ogun Central) and Adesoji Akanbi from Oyo South.
