Coming on the first day of sitting at the House of Representatives after the primary election in which he emerged as winner under the banner of the PDP, the announcement of defection of Dr Alex Egbona was made on Tuesday in the hallowed chambers of the lower arm of the National Assembly.
Egbona had, on May 4, tendered his resignation as member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in a letter he addressed to his ward chairman, citing fragmentation in the party as his reason.
The following day, on May 5, he had written to the speaker, House of Representatives, to inform him of what he called the painful decision to quit the party he helped build in his state. Egbona represents Abi/Yakurr Federal Constituency of Cross River State.
TNN reports that prior to the APC primaries, the state governor, Senator Bassey Otu, who is the leader of APC in the state, had set up screening committees for each of the senatorial districts for the screening of aspirants ahead of the 2027 election, with the aim of choosing candidates through consensus, even though turn of events revealed that judgements had already been passed even before the cases were filed.
Those from the south were screened in Calabar, those from the central in Ikom, while those from the north were screened at Ogoja. But, whereas other aspirants appeared before the various committees, the governor’s preferred aspirant, who later emerged the candidate for Abi/Yakurr, was in Abuja with the governor while the screening was going on.
For the two days that the screening lasted, Gaul never showed up, apparently on the instructions of the governor. He only returned to the state after the screening had been completed.
Apart from Egbona, other members of the House of Representatives also announced their defection to other parties on Tuesday. Kingsley Chinda, who used to be the minority leader, announced his resignation from the position same day as well as his resignation from the PDP.
The resignation of Chinda, the Minority Leader, has effectively left the opposition lawmakers with only one leader, the Deputy Minority Whip, George Ozodinobi.
The other defectors from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), were Esosa Iyawe (Edo) who defected for the third time in three weeks to the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) after losing the party primary for the House of Representatives seat on the platform of the APC and Jonathan Gaza Gbewfi who is leaving the Social Democratic Party for the Labour Party.
Others were Sani Lawal (Katsina) who resigned his membership of the APC, but his destination was not announced by the Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen who read the letters of defections, while Shehu Dalhat Tafoki (Katsina) is leaving the APC to join the PDP.
The PDP also lost Adebayo Adepoju (Oyo), Stanley Olajide (Oyo), Ojo Sunday Makanjuola (Oyo), Najeem Oyedeji (Oyo), Folajimi Oyekunle (Oyo), Abbas Adigun (Oyo) and Auwalu Gwalabe (Bauchi) to the Allied Peoples Movement (APM.
