Influx of defectors could destabilise APC, Ndume warns

Ali Ndume, a ranking member of the Nigerian Senate, has raised alarm over the increasing wave of defections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), warning that the trend poses a grave threat to the health of Nigeria’s democracy and could destabilise the party itself.

Dozens of prominent opposition figures, including governors and lawmakers, have defected to the ruling party in recent times.

Speaking on ARISE NEWS Prime Time on Tuesday evening, the Borno South lawmaker said the influx of politicians into the APC, many of whom he described as lacking political principles, could eventually overload the party’s structure, likening it to a ship at risk of capsizing.

“You see a ship, as the President said, there is vacancy in the ship. But if you overload that ship, it is likely going to capsize. And if it capsizes, you lose everybody,” Ndume said.

He emphasised that while political platforms are important, they should not be used merely as tools for personal advancement without ideological commitment.

“Even if you need a platform, it should be where your conscience will be with you. But that is not the case, and it is very, very dangerous for democracy itself. If there is no visible, effective opposition, that democracy is under threat of its own,” he warned.

Ndume expressed concern that the mass defections reflect the failure of the opposition, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party, to provide credible alternatives or play their constitutional role.

“This coalition that is developing outside the major political party that is our APC is to me a positive development in democracy. There can be no effective democracy without opposition, which the major, supposedly the opposition, has failed to provide,” he said.

He noted that while voters remain largely committed to their choices, politicians are the ones switching allegiances for personal gain.

“What I see now is that politicians are decamping while the voters or the people that elect us are not,” he said, adding that many defections were driven by what he described as a “stick and carrot” political strategy.