National Assembly: More Lawmakers Set To Dump PDP For APC

BEVERLY HILLS, CA, January 06, (THEWILL) -  More members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  in the House of Representatives and Senate are expected to cross-carpet to the All Progressives Congress (APC) as from next week when the National Assembly  reconvenes.

Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Hon.

Mohammed Monguno (APC-Borno), who disclosed this in Abuja said more defection would also be expected from the larger political scene as clearly witnessed in Kaduna recently.

According to him, with the recent defection of 37 members of the PDP in the House to APC, the party had succeeded in producing the simple majority in the House.

He said with this development, there would be changes in some leadership positions in the House.

"As for the defection before we went on recess, the APC has succeeded in achieving simple majority in the House to give it the tonic to effect a change of leadership in the House, " he said.

He however said the change would exclude the positions of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker as the constitution and the House rules are silent on them.

"With regards to the positions of Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, there is no where either in the constitution or the rules of the House that says the majority party in the House will produce the Speaker," he said.

He said that any political party in the House could produce the speaker or the deputy speaker.

Monguno said the provisions of the House rules was very clear on the positions of the Majority leader, deputy majority leader, chief whip and deputy whip.

He maintained that APC had achieved the majority in the House and the minority leader was expected to assume the position of the majority leader when the House resumes Jan.

13.
"Immediately we resume from recess, we expect that our Minority Leader will now assume the position of Majority Leader, there will be swap in positions," he said, With the defection of 37 PDP members of the House to the APC, the party has 172 against the PDP's 171.

By Saint Mugaga, Abuja