George Ibezimako Ozodinobi (LP, Anambra), the Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, has criticized his colleagues for switching to the ruling All Progressives Congress, or APC.
Four members of the LP reportedly left the party on Thursday: Esosa Iyawe (Oredo Federal Constituency, Edo); Mathew Donatus (Kaura Federal Constituency of Kaduna); Akiba Bassey (Calabar Municipal/Odukpani Constituency); and Chinedu Okere (Owerri Municipal/Owerri North/Owerri West Constituency).
The defectors identified internal strife inside the Labour Party, which received almost six million votes in the previous year’s presidential election, as the reason for their political change, according to a letter read by Speaker of the House Abbas Tajudeen at Thursday’s plenary.
Ozodinobi, however, expressed his displeasure with his coworkers who had just quit the LP and brought up a point of order on the Green Chamber floor after the speaker had read the letter of defection.
“I will quote the Bible. When Jesus was carrying the cross to the Calvary, the woman, Veronica, was weeping. And he looked back and said, women of Israel, don’t weep for me, weep for yourself.
“I am telling those who have defected that they will continue weeping for themselves because where you have crossed over to, you don’t have a future,” the lawmaker said.
The Labour Party characterized their decision as regrettable after they defected.
Obiora Ifoh, the party’s spokesperson, called their defection regrettable and denounced the conduct as unreasonable, unworkable, contradictory, and incompatible with all accepted democratic standards.
“Though the Labour Party leadership is undaunted by the defection, it has however, elected not to allow it slide and has therefore instructed its legal team to commence the legal actions against the defectors and to also commence the process of regaining our mandates in line with the 1999 constitution and 2022 Electoral Act as amended,” the LP spokesman said in a statement.
