National Chairman, All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun
The All Progressives Congress will firmly be in control of the 8th House of Representatives as the majority party with over 214 members.
There are a total of 360 seats in the second chamber of the National Assembly.
Figures emerging from the outcome of the March 28 National Assembly poll, show that APC members are now 214, against the Peoples Democratic Party, which has 125 lawmakers.
The statistics gives a gap of 89 between the APC and the PDP in favour of the former.
The figures, which The PUNCH obtained on Tuesday, exclude the 11 federal constituency seats in Jigawa State, where election has yet to be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
When elections for the 11 seats are conducted, the APC will possibly get additional seats, meaning that its numerical strength in the House may be well above 214 at inauguration on June 6.
Three other political parties, Labour Party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance and Accord Party, share the balance of 10 seats, bringing the total to 360.
The distribution of the figures shows that the APC has the highest membership haul from the North-West with 81 lawmakers, as against the PDP’s zero score for now.
It is followed by the South-West, where it won 47 seats compared to the PDP’s 20.
In the North-Central, the party got 41 seats and left eight for the PDP.
The APC’s performance in the North-East was 40 as against the seven seats won by the PDP.
The PDP’s strongest zone is the South-South, where it produced 52 members, compared to the APC’s three. The three seats came from Edo State.
The current majority party won 38 seats in the South-East, leaving only three for the APC in Imo State.
A further breakdown indicates that the APC did not win any seat in Ebonyi, Anambra, Enugu and Abia states.
Same goes for the South-South states of Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers and Bayelsa, where it did not produce any lawmaker.
However, the APC took all the seats in Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi in the North-West.
In its second strongest zone (South-West), it got 19 seats out of 24 in Lagos; 12 in Oyo State; seven in Osun; five in Ondo and four in Ogun.
The PDP cleared all the six seats in Ekiti State.
In the North-Central axis, APC won all seats in Kogi, Kwara and Niger states. It won eight out of 11 in Benue; six out of eight in Plateau; and two out of five in Nasarawa State.
Similarly, it amassed all the seats in Bauchi and Borno states.
But, in Adamawa, the APC has seven, the PDP (one); Gombe, the APC has four, PDP (two); Taraba, APC two, PDP (three); and Yobe, APC five, PDP (one).
At the inauguration of the 7th Assembly on June 6, 2011, the PDP was in clear majority with around 208 lawmakers. The defunct Action Congress of Nigeria had about 70 members, followed by the then Congress for Progressive Change, which had around 40 lawmakers.
Following the historic merger in 2013 between the ACN, CPC and the All Nigerian Peoples Party to form the APC, the PDP began rapidly to lose its control of the House.
In December of the same year, 37 PDP members moved in one day to the APC. More defections followed in the run up to the last elections.
It was capped on October 28, 2014, with the defection of the Speaker, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, a PDP lawmaker, to the APC.
By the time the two parties went for the March 28 polls, the APC’s membership in the House had risen to above 180, while the PDP fell to between 158 and 160.
The outcome of the polls further confirmed the APC’s control of the House and positioned it to produce the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Majority Leader, Chief Whip and Deputy Majority Leader of the in-coming 8th Assembly.
This will turn the table against the PDP, now demoted to minority or the main opposition party.
Commenting on the turn of events on Tuesday, the outgoing Deputy Majority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor, described it as “democracy at play,” though he assured Nigerians that the PDP would bounce back.
JOHN AMEH
