Presidency: Defecting N’Assembly Members to Lose their Seats Soon!

The Presidency Saturday said members of the National Assembly who recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) would soon lose their seats.
It said over half of the members will not return to their seats after the expected by-election.

The presidency, through the Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said it was unperturbed by the “recent wave of orchestrated defection by PDP politicians especially members of the national assembly.”

Okupe, in a chat with THISDAY in Lagos, said it was unfortunate that the lawmakers chose to follow the dictates of their state governors who had in the last several months tried unsuccessfully to destabilise the PDP and create apprehension in the minds of the populace.

He said with the exception of Rivers State, a cursory analysis of the 2011 general election showed that the states where the defecting governors and the lawmakers come from contributed no significant vote to the presidential election.

The presidential aide, therefore, submitted that the exit of the members of the national assembly and their governors would bear no significant consequence to the 2015 presidential election.
Okupe said it was unfortunate that the lawmakers chose to toe the path of their leaders who are old brigades who have nothing to offer the country but desperation for power.

He lampooned the APC for being a party for all comers’ affair, saying that it had jettisoned progressive ideology and welfarism for crass political opportunism and desperation for power.
The presidential aide said members of the APC had not been able to convince Nigerians that they are alternative to the ruling PDP.

He boasted that the presidency was unperturbed by the party’s parade of eminent Nigerians, saying that it was evident that the party was suffering from a leadership deficiency and hence its  penchant for embarking on journeys in search of leaders to give it direction.
He contended that what members the party were showing to Nigerians was their inability to market the new party on the basis of a manifesto, party programme or contemporary politics that can change the country.

Taking a direct swipe at former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) and former Governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Tinubu, for not doing anything for the country and Lagos State when they were in power, Okupe said while “Buhari’s legacy was the issue of 53 suit cases and an exemplary demonstration of parochialism and corruption, Tinubu’s legacy was an administration which could not tackle the refuse which almost suffocated the state.”

According to him, “these features run through the entire leadership of the APC and totally precludes them any dream of being a party that rescue or sensibly find solution to Nigeria’s problems.”
The presidential aide said the party was made up of old men who have little or nothing to show for their several years in service to the nation.
A This Day Report.