Defection: Lawan under pressure to sack Abbo

The defection of Senator Ishaku Elisha Abbo from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) might take an unsavoury dimension as the Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan has been asked to declare Abbo’s seat vacant.

Senator Abbo representing Adamawa North Senatorial district defected to APC penultimate week, citing crisis in Adamawa PDP, which has been denied.

A former presidential aide and Adamawa PDP stalwart, Dr. Umar Ardo leading the removal campaign against the lawmaker, told Lawan to take into cognisance, constitutional breach of Senator Abbo’s defection.

He said, “Given the expressed provision of Section 68(1)(g)of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), and the clear interpretation of this provision by the Supreme Court, the President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, owes the Nigerian state the inalienable duty to declare Senator Elisa Abbos’s seat vacant, in deference to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as a consequence of the latter’s defection from the PDP to the APC.

But Ardo, in a message titled ‘Don’t imperil our democracy’ and which was made available to journalists insisted that Lawan owed Nigerians the right to declare the seat of the Senator vacant.

Abbo insisted that the governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri has grounded PDP as a result of his poor handling of State affairs.

He further revealed that his defection would afford him opportunity to use the APC platform to dislodge governor Fintiri in 2023 general election.

Abbo boasted of his popularity in Adamawa politics, a Boko Haram embattled State in Northeast Nigeria, while there have been no reports of defection of other PDP members in his constituency or State to APC yet.