By Haruna Salami
Chief Whip of the Senate, Orji Uzor Kalu, has led 22 aggrieved senators of the All Progressives Congress, APC to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Tuesday to stem the tide of defection from the party.
The 22 senators had vowed to defect from the party over the outcome of primaries in their state ahead of the 2023 general elections.Leader of the delegation, Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu, said the lawmakers felt disenfranchised by the process.Speaking at the meeting, President Buhari urged the Senators to exercise restraint in their decision to defect from the party.
Several APC lawmakers have defected recently. Appealing to the lawmakers, President Buhari 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. Writing on his social media page “Earlier this afternoon, I led the 22 aggrieved Senators and members of the All Progressive Congress to President Muhammad Buhari”, Kalu, the Chief Whip of the ninth Senate, said in a statement.
“Our meeting with Mr President was successful and the issue of decamping from our party has been laid to rest”, the chief whip concluded.
Lately, the All Progressive Congress (APC) has been uneasy following the gradual loss of the party’s majority in the senate, tensions have also been heightened over the rumoured bid of the 18 other senators to defect to other political parties, after the party earlier lost seven senators to the opposition parties.
