Yahaya Abdullahi, senate leader, defects from APC to PDP

Yahaya Abdullahi, leader of the senate, has resigned his position and defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In a letter read by Senate President Ahmad Lawan on the floor of the upper legislative chamber on Tuesday, Abdullahi said he defected to PDP to join those “against incompetence, imposition and violation of democratic norms, principles and practices.”

The senator said he is seeking to end tyranny in Kebbi state.

“At a point, I thought of resorting to the courts, but decided against that course of action after realising that political challenges require political solutions in the democratic arena where it is the people and not the judges who are the final arbiters,” he said in the letter.

“So, after having failed to get justice in my former party, the APC, I have jumped ship to the PDP together with our teeming supporters in a struggle to democratically bring to an end the misrule and tyranny currently gripping Kebbi state.”

Also, the defection of Adamu Aliero, senator representing Kebbi central, was announced by Lawan.

Aliero said there is no internal democracy in the APC in Kebbi.

The senator also accused Atiku Bagudu, Kebbi governor, of “bastardising” the party and electoral processes in the state, which he said are now “characterised by high handedness and unfairness”.

On his part, Lawan said he read their letters with “a heavy heart” and described the defections as a loss to the APC.

According to him, the senators “will be the light of the other side (PDP)”.