The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has continued to lick its wound over the spate of high profile defections from the party to the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC.
The opposition party on Monday, vehemently protested against the decision of Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle to dump the party for the APC.
Governor Matawalle and some federal and state lawmakers in the state were received into the APC fold in Gusau on Monday. But the PDP quickly warned that the law only allows defection in a situation of crisis in the party the defector belonged to.
Matawalle lost the 2019 election to APC candidate Muktar Idris but was sworn in after the Supreme Court ruled that the APC ran foul of its Constitution in picking its standard bearer.
The situation affected many House of Assembly members elected on the APC platform, who also los their seats to the PDP opponents.
Matawalle is the second PDP governor to defect to the APC in the last two months after Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade dumped the PDP on May 20..
With Matawalle’s defection, APC now has 22 governors to PDP’s 13. The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) controls Anambra.
PDP spokesman Kola Ologbodiyan said: “A combined reading of Section 221 of the 1999 Constitution as the pronouncements of the Supreme Court in Faleke v. INEC (2016) is clear in holding that it is the political party that stands for election, that votes scored in election belong to the political party and that the candidate nominated to contest at an election by his party acts only as the agent of his party.
“The PDP hopes that Bello Matawalle as well as members of the National and State Assembly from Zamfara State will take caution.”
