Tinubu: Three More Senators Decamp From APC

By Uche Mbah

Since after the All Progressives Congress, APC, primary election that threw up Bola Ahmed Tinubu as its Presidential Candidate, the party has continues to hemorrhage.

On Tuesday, three Senators of the APC resigned their membership of the ruling party thus, worsening the recent exodus of senior party members.

The exodus fuelled speculations that the North, strategically, will not vote along party lines but will line up behind the Northern  Candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

Only recently, campaign posters of APC gubernatorial and legislative candidates superimposed photos of Atiku on their campaign posters.

The lawmakers are Senators Ahmad Babba Kaita (Katsina North), Lawal Yahaya Gumau (Bauchi South), and Francis Alimikhena (Edo North).

Gumau, defected to the New Nigeria Peoples Party while Babba Kaita and Alimikhena defected to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

They wrote three separate letters to the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, Tuesday, announcing their change of parties.

Their departure has reduced the number of the APC Senators to 67 from 70.

Babba Kaita’s letter reads in part:

“As Senator representing Katsina North Senatorial District, I write to formally notify you of my resignation from the All Progressives Congress (APC), and registration declaration for the Peoples Democratic Party.

“My resignation from the APC was born out of the marginalisation of critical stakeholders by the State Government and Leadership of the Party in Katsina State, where small people like me do not have a chance.

“I have since been joyful and graciously accepted into the fold of the Peoples Democratic Party in Katsina State.”

On his part, Senator Alimikhena, said his decision was as a result of “continuing and multifaceted crisis that has bedeviled the APC”,in his Senatorial District, “that has created parallel executives that has undermined internal discipline, cohesion and focus.”

In a related development, the Senate President, who lost the bid to become the presidential candidate had gone back to reclaim his slot as a senatorial candidacy but was rebuffed by the candidate he kept their as a “placeholder”. He has allegedly bulldozed his way through Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to submit his name as the rightful candidate kicks.