• Democracy under siege, opposition shrinking ahead 2027, CHRICED warns

FORMER Senate Leader, Mohammed Ali Ndume, has raised the alarm over the wave of defections by governors and lawmakers from opposition parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), warning that the party may be courting an internal collapse if the trend continues unchecked.

Also, the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) warned that the defection would shrink opposition and undermine democracy.

Ndume, who represents Borno South in the Senate, spoke on Sunday night at the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe Annual Award Lecture, held at the NICON Luxury Hotel, Abuja, where he received the honour of Most Outstanding Legislator and Advocate of National Unity.

In a candid acceptance speech that drew murmurs from the audience, the outspoken lawmaker dismissed many of the defectors as political lightweights with little or no value to add to the governing party, insisting that the APC is becoming “overloaded” with “mostly empty cargo.”

Checks by The Guardian revealed that the gale of defections accelerated within the last year, leaving the opposition parties badly depleted.
No fewer than five governors, including those of Delta, Bayelsa, Enugu and Taraba, have dumped their parties for the APC. Also awaited is the defection of the Plateau State governor.

Ndume, in a metaphor-laden address, warned that the rising influx poses structural danger to the ruling party.

“I have warned that the APC is becoming overloaded. And when you overload a ship, especially with mostly empty cargo, it risks capsizing,” he declared.

DESCRIBING the defections as a coordinated assault on Nigeria’s democratisation, the organisation said it amounted to a calculated attack on political pluralism and a betrayal of voters’ mandate.

Addressing a press conference on the State of the Nation, Executive Director of CHRICED, Dr Ibrahim Zikirullahi, said widespread allegations that some of the defections were influenced by financial inducements signal complicity, not neutrality.

He noted that democracy could not thrive in an atmosphere where corruption is normalised.

Zikirullahi also expressed concern over the silence of the National Assembly leadership over reports that lawmakers allegedly pay between N1 million and N3 million to present motions or bills in the National Assembly.

According to him, Ndume’s recent claim that aides in the Presidential Villa demand bribes before granting access to President Tinubu further deepens concerns about transparency at the highest level of government.