PDP House of Reps Member, Amos Gwamina Magaji Joins APC

A member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP who represents Zangon Kataf/Jaba Federal Constituency of Kaduna State in the House of Representatives, Amos Mogaji, has defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mr Mogaji’s defection was announced in a letter read by the Speaker of the House, Abbas Tajudeen, on the floor of the House on Tuesday.

The lawmaker said he defected from the PDP to the APC because of the division in the PDP.

He said the party is divided at both the national and ward levels, noting that all efforts to address the problem have proven abortive.

While members of the ruling APC congratulated Mr Mogaji for joining their party, the minority bench, led by the Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda protested against the defection by raising a constitutional point of order.

Mr Chinda cited Section 68 of the 1999 Constitution to argue his point of order and called on Mr Tajudeen to declare the defector’s seat vacant.

But, members of the ruling party responded with loud boos, rejecting the order.

In ruling on the point of order, Speaker Tajudeen said that since the defector had cited division in the PDP, he had complied with the law.

Section 68 (1g) of the 1999 Constitution states:

“A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if—

“being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected. Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored.”

This defection is the latest to affect the minority caucus of the National Assembly with the Labour Party (LP) and the PDP losing significant number of their members to the ruling APC.

Both the PDP and Labour Party have been having lingering leadership and political crises, which many members have used as reason for their defection.

In the Senate, Didactic Information Hut recalls that Delta North senator, Ned Nwoko, had last week also defected from the PDP to the APC.