Nigeria’s President Buhari Suffers Blow as He Loses Senate

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa)- Nigeria’s ruling party lost its majority in the Senate after over a dozen lawmakers defected to the main opposition group, dealing a blow to President Muhammadu Buhari who is seeking re-election early next year.

A group of 15 senators, including Rabiu Kwankwaso, a former governor of the northern state of Kano, quit the All Progressives Congress to join the People’s Democratic Party, Senate President Bukola Saraki said Tuesday during proceedings in the capital, Abuja. The Senate later said on Twitter that two of the defectors were joining a different opposition party.

“It’s significant,” APC spokesman Bolaji Abdullahi said by phone from Abuja. “What happened is not something that we just allowed to happen. We’d been having deliberations with our members up until last night to stave off this particular situation.”

Buhari, a 75-year-old former military ruler, is seeking a second four-year term in elections due in February 2019. He is contending with the unravelling of the coalition that formed the APC and brought him to power by defeating an incumbent in 2015 for the first time in the country’s history.

Lower House Too
“It’s a blow to the APC,” Jared Jeffrey, an analyst at NKC African Economics near Cape Town, South Africa, said by phone. “Buhari still has the advantage of being the incumbent, but it’s getting more and more difficult and competitive for him.”

Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina declined to comment on the developments.

Some 37 APC members of Nigeria’s lower chamber, the House of Representatives, also defected Tuesday, with 32 joining the PDP, majority leader Femi Gbajabiamila told reporters. The ruling party retained the majority, he said.

Tuesday’s defections came weeks after an APC faction, made of former PDP members who joined the ruling party in 2015, including Saraki and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, announced they would join abroad opposition coalition led by the PDP.

Neither Saraki nor Dogara have publicly confirmed leaving the ruling party. Relations between Nigeria’s legislature and executive have been strained, with Saraki and Dogara, who emerged legislative leaders against Buhari’s wish, often going against the party line.

Witch Hunt
Tuesday morning, security operatives surrounded the houses of Saraki and his his deputy Ike Ekweremadu, in Abuja, their spokesmen said.

Saraki said in a statement earlier that he was invited to appear at a police station in Abuja on Tuesday for questioning over his alleged link to an armed robbery in his home state of Kwara. He said the police had turned the investigation into a witch hunt against people seen as government opponents.

He accused the police of acting in concert with the government to detain him as a way to prevent some lawmakers from defecting from the APC.

“This plot is aimed at compelling me and my associates to stay in a party where members are criminalized without just cause, where injustice is perpetrated at the highest level and where there is no respect for constitutionalism,” Saraki said.

Playing Games
The police denied deploying operatives outside Saraki’s residence, saying the policemen seen at the site were those attached to the Senate president. Police spokesman Jimoh Moshood confirmed in a statement that Saraki had been invited to report to a station in conjunction with the robbery investigation.

According to Jeffrey at NKC African Economics, Saraki is likely to leave the APC and seek the leadership of the opposition coalition.

“The Senate President is playing the game and he is playing it quite well,” said Olusegun Sotola, research fellow at the Initiative for Public Policy Analysis, on the phone from Lagos. “For 15 senators to defect, there must have been discussions and discussions.”

Source: Bloomberg Business News