The Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, George Ibezimako Ozodinobi (Labour Party, Anambra), has chastised his colleagues for defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Recall that four members of the LP – Chinedu Okere (Owerri Municipal/Owerri North/Owerri West Constituency), Mathew Donatus (Kaura Federal Constituency of Kaduna), Akiba Bassey (Calabar Municipal/Odukpani Constituency), and Esosa Iyawe (Oredo Federal Constituency, Edo) – left the party on Thursday, citing internal wrangling in the Labour Party, which received approximately six million votes in last year’s presidential election.
However, when the speaker read the letter of defection, Ozodinobi raised a point of order in the Green Chamber, expressing his disgust with his comrades who had recently departed the LP.
“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, denounced the action and called their defection “quite unfortunate.”
“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.
