Nigeria: 15 senators defected from ruling party

Fifteen Nigerian senators defected from the ruling party of President Muhammadu Buhari, facing severe internal dissension in just over six months of presidential elections, Senate President Bukola Saraki said Tuesday.

"More of 15 people have left the camp, defected "Congress of Progressives (APC) to join the main opposition party, the Democratic People's Party (PDP), announced Mr. Saraki at the last plenary session of the Senate before Parliamentary Vacations.

The list of senators who joined the opposition included Rabiu Kwankwaso, a former influential Kano governor who was touted as a potential candidate for the presidential election scheduled for February 2019.

Rumors of mass defections had been raging for weeks, with the CPA suffering from major dissensions, culminating in the creation in early July of a mass movement. In the party, the reformed PCA (RPAP)

M. Saraki, whose differences with President Buhari are notorious although he is still an official member of the APC, is suspected of being at the origin of the RAPC and massive rallies to the opposition.

The Supreme Court Nigeria has recently raised charges of corruption against Mr. Saraki after a lengthy court battle that he described as a political witch hunt.

But the Senate Speaker was summoned by the Nigerian police on Tuesday. , accused of having ordered a series of robberies of banks in his political stronghold, the state of Kwara, last April.

In a statement released Monday evening, Saraki denounced a "ploy" to prevent the imminent defections of

On Tuesday morning, the police forces also surrounded the residence of the Senate Speaker in Abuja, who however managed to reach the Parliament House to run the meeting. this plenary.

"The security services are instrumentalised to settle political accounts," commented AFP Cheta Nwanze, consulting firm SBM Intelligence, based in Lagos.

"The security forces have always been submitted to the executive's wishes, but what has just happened shows impunity on a level never seen since the military era. "