BY Emman Ovuakporie & Levinus Nwabughoigu
ABUJA—Members of the House of Representatives in the new Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP, a faction of the ruling party, yesterday formally defected to the All Progressives Congress, APC.

The drama of the defection started immediately the plenary started, the House went for a 10 minutes closed door session, the shortest in the history of the 7th Assembly.
However, immediately the plenary commenced after the closed door session at about 11.56am, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, announced that the House had adopted the report of the joint Committee on Harmonisation of the benchmark for the sale of crude oil and the MTEF.

Tambuwal explained that “in our closed door session this morning, we discussed the MTEF and the benchmark for the sale of crude oil and adopted $77.5 for the 2014 budget estimates.”
After this announcement, the speaker asked leader of the House, Mulikat Akande-Adeola, to move a motion to allow the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, be allowed entry into the chamber to present the 2014 budget on behalf of President Goodluck Jonathan.
It was immediately seconded by the Deputy Leader, Leo Ogor, PDP, Delta.

Defection
At this point, the speaker announced the defection of 37 members of the PDP into APC.  This was welcomed with a loud ovation by APC members.
In the letter read before the House by Tambuwal, the members alleged that they decamped because of the sharp division in the ruling PDP.
Reading from the letter, the speaker said:  “ Our 37 colleagues elected under the platform of PDP have decided to join APC as a result of the problems in our party and we have merged with APC according to Section 68 of our 1999 constitution. “
At this juncture, Kingsley Chinda, PDP, Rivers, raised a point of order, citing Order 9 Rule 52 of the House which borders on the fact that there was a judicial matter still pending in court over defection of PDP members to APC.
Chinda was properly booed by APC members who shouted him down.
While responding to his point of order, Tambuwal said “I’ve listened to you attentively and I’ve taken note.“
This answer gave rise to another round of ovation which overwhelmingly swallowed the voices of PDP members.

Announcing the names
The speaker went ahead to announce the names of all those who defected. And this led to another round of joyful noise by the APC members as Tambuwal listed their names.
Each member as his name is being announced, received a loud ovation from  APC members.
This development in the House automatically places the ruling PDP in the minority in a House of 360 members.
Before the defection yesterday, the original PDP members were 208 and with this new development, the PDP now has 171 members, while the APC has 175.
With 175 members, the APC has a clear majority and will need 6 fresh members to take over the leadership of the House.

APC and more members
If the APC can garner six more members to meet the required 181 members, then it can conveniently change the present leadership structure of the House.
Facts, however, emerged on Tuesday night that the nPDP and APC met at different times to perfect the defection of the 37 former members of the PDP.
With this development, there is likelihood of leadership change in the House as some APC members were already hell-bent in effecting some changes among the principal officers in the House.
It was also gathered that some major APC lawmakers in the House held a meeting from morning to afternoon, Tuesday on the issue.
It was observed that most of the who-is-who in APC in the House were not at Tuesday’s plenary.
They included Minority leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, and his deputy, Suleiman Abdulrahman Kawu, among others.