Defection: No amount of pressure will force us back to PDP – Reps

    
Former Peoples Democratic Party members of the House of Representatives who defected to the All Progressives Congress have vowed not to return to the party despite alleged pressures on them to do so.

“No amount of pressure will force us back to PDP.

“Our decision is a done deal and there is no point crying when the head is already off”, one of the key defectors, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, told The PUNCH in Abuja on Monday.

Mohammed, a lawmaker from Kawara State, is the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs.

Thirty-Seven PDP lawmakers had defected to the APC on the floor of the House on December 18, citing “factions” in their former party as the reason for the action.

The reason for the defection was contained in a letter they wrote the Speaker, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, following which they were admitted into the APC’s folds.

The development gave the APC a slim majority advantage over the PDP, with the former controlling 172 members, while the latter dropped to 171.

Findings showed that in a bid to compel the members to return to the party, they had been put under pressure by the PDP and the Presidency.

“They have used all sorts of tactics, including the carrot of assuring some members a return ticket in 2015.

“They have used the political machinery in the states and constituencies to get people to comply, but it is not working”, one lawmaker confided in The PUNCH on Monday.

The PDP and the Presidency have since asked Tambuwal and the Independent National Electoral Commission to declare the seats of the affected lawmakers vacant.

But, the lawmakers stated on Monday that they knew that such a thing was likely to happen, a reason they first obtained a court order stopping it before they defected.

Speaking on the issue, the Chairman, House Committee on Justice, Mr. Ali Ahmad, expressed surprise that, in spite of the subsisting court order, the Presidency was still bent on declaring the seats vacant.

Ahmad, a defector, observed that as “recently as just days ago”, the Presidency was still talking of declaring the seats vacant.

He added, “For us, there is no point commenting on this threat other than to wait and watch.

“The matter is in court; the threat by the Presidency to declare our seats vacant is contemptuous of the court decision.

“That is the subject of the matter in court and the court has ruled that our seats should remain intact.

“Therefore, it is the highest level of contempt for the Presidency to be insisting that our seats should be declared vacant in disobedience to the court order.”

Ahmad argued that it would have been better for the Presidency to be “seeking some kind of a political solution to the problem, not to continue to insist on declaring our seats vacant as if a court order no longer means anything in this country.”

The lawmaker confirmed that the defectors were being continuously harassed, but he noted that “it will not work because we have passed that stage. Let them go to the court.”

Speaking further, Mohammed told The PUNCH that unknown to the PDP and the Presidency, the defectors did their “homework very well” before they left the party.

According to him, the electorate in the lawmakers’ constituency are in support of the move.

He spoke more, “They (PDP) had all the time to mend the roof when it was leaking but they waited till it collapsed.

“Politics is about consultation. Before we made this move, we consulted widely with our own people who sent us to the National Assembly.

“They wholeheartedly endorsed it. So, when you have the backing of your people, what else?

“Now, they want to use fire brigade approach to ask people to come back.

“It is the same approach to governance that they use, which is why nothing is working in this country.”

Punch