15 senators quit Nigeria's ruling party

By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - At least 15 Nigerian senators quit the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday, signaling a turbulent political climate ahead of presidential and parliamentary polls early next year.

The senators officially wrote a letter to the Senate leadership to declare allegiance to the opposition People’s Democratic Party in a move likely to provoke a legal tussle on the status of their seats.

“We hereby inform that we are changing our political affiliation from the APC to PDP,” 14 of them wrote in a joint letter read by Bukola Saraki, the Senate president. Saraki later read a separate letter from Senator Abdulaziz Nyako announcing his defection from the ruling party to the PDP.

The defectors include controversial Senator Dino Melaye, who is facing multiple criminal charges, and the influential Rabiu Kwankwaso, a former governor and incumbent senator from northwest Kano state.

The Tuesday move may be only the beginning of mass defections from the APC following grumblings within its fold after several top notches lost out in the party's recent convention. Saraki and others may also quit the party in the coming days, effectively ceding control of the senate to the PDP -- a first since Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999.

But the defection may not go unchallenged, with the ruling party likely to ask the court to declare the seats of the defectors vacant in conformity with a ruling of the country's Supreme Court. According to the court, defectors must show that their party is officially in crisis and fragmented to retain their seats.

The defection came hours after video footage emerged of police vehicles purportedly blocking Saraki’s residence, a day after he was summoned to appear before detectives probing his alleged links to an armed robbery incident in which at least 31 people were killed. There were also claims of cops blocking the residence of Ike Ekweremadu, deputy Senate president.

Police have not confirmed or denied the account, but the country's anti-graft agency has asked Ekweremadu to appear for questioning over an alleged money laundering case involving the opposition politician.

The senate is currently adjourned until Sept. 25.