Just in: APC Loses Majority in National Assembly

Smartzonas.blogspot.com : Politics, 

The ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) is facing serious problems as the 2019 Elections gradually approach. The party seems to have lost its majority status in the two chambers of the national assembly following the formation of a faction of the party, R-APC.

In the upper chamber of the National Assembly, the APC won a total of 64 Senate seats; the PDP, 45; and the Labour Party, one. Similarly, the APC won 214 seats as against the PDP which got 125 seats -a difference of 89 seats in favour of the ruling party.

According to New Telegraph, these statistics had given the APC a clear political advantage in the parliament until the party split into factions, following the emergence of the Reformed All Progressives Congress (R-APC), a coalition of the aggrieved members of the party.

However, with the latest developments, while the PDP maintained its moderate presence in the Red Chamber with 43 seats, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has two seats while the APC has been split down in the middle.

The tsunami, it was learnt, has forced at least 30 senators elected on the platform of the APC into the newly formed R-APC, a special purpose vehicle on a political journey to the PDP.

A similar scenario played out in the House of Representatives where the bulk of those who represent the APC in the 360 – member Green Chamber were members of the New PDP (nPDP) and now subscribe to the R-APC train.

“As it stands now, the APC, as a party has lost its majority to the PDP because majority of them occupying APC seats are now members of the R-APC.

These include members of the nPDP who had been at loggerheads with the mainstream APC and others who were originally APC but have been forced by circumstances to join forces with the nPDP in the exodus out of the ruling party,” our source said.

Although, the National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, had dismissed the emergence of the splinter group as a non-issue, there are strong indications that the rebel group has already activated a programme that could deal a heavy blow on the ruling party at the next polls.

A member of the R-APC and serving member of the upper chamber of the National Assembly, Sen. Shehu Sani, said the desperate moves by Oshiomhole to halt the drift in the APC came rather too late.