The Nigerian Senate erupted into a heated exchange on Tuesday as lawmakers clashed over the defection of Senator Ned Nwoko from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The plenary session, initially set for legislative deliberations, quickly turned into a battle of words as PDP senators opposed Nwoko’s move, insisting that the party was not in crisis and that his defection was unconstitutional.
The controversy began when Senate Minority Leader Abba Moro raised a constitutional point of order, questioning whether there was a genuine division within the PDP’s National Working Committee (NWC) to justify the defection.
Moro argued that since the party remained structurally intact, Nwoko’s switch to the APC lacked legal backing.
Deputy Senate President Jibril Barau countered this argument, asserting that the Constitution permits defections in cases where a party is divided.
“Everybody in the country knows that there is a division. You have the Wike faction and the Bala Mohammed faction,” Barau said.
Moro dismissed the claim, insisting that the PDP was law-abiding and had been following judicial rulings, including the Court of Appeal’s decision on the party’s secretaryship.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio, however, interjected multiple times, pressing Moro on what the Supreme Court had ruled and what PDP governors had said on the matter.
Amid the back-and-forth, Akpabio announced that an ad hoc committee would be set up to examine the PDP’s internal crisis.
Ultimately, he ruled against the opposition’s objections, stating that the Senate could not act as a court in determining party divisions.
He upheld Nwoko’s defection, effectively closing the debate and allowing the session to move forward.
Earlier in the session, Akpabio had read Nwoko’s defection letter, in which the senator formally announced his departure from the PDP and called for an investigation into the party’s internal issues to protect democracy.
