Senator Ifeanyi Ubah Dumps YPP, Embraces APC.

Ifeanyi Ubah, who was elected senator on the platform of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) has dumped the party for the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).

According to TheCable, APC Chairman Adams Oshiomhole, announced Ubah’s defection at a meeting President Muhammadu Buhari held with APC senators-elect at the presidential villa on the night of Monday, March 25, 2019.

The defection arrives four days after Ubah denied he was making moves to dump the YPP. Ubah had said: “I am not yet ready to defect from the YPP. I am still in the YPP. In party business, you can’t determine what would happen next. Sometimes you wake up and you will start seeing one problem or the other. For me today, I am in the YPP and I hope to remain in the party.

The YPP is bringing a revolution of change to Nigeria. I must join a progressive group in the senate since I cannot be alone. The YPP is the party to beat in this country. I won my election without the party having an office in any part of Anambra State.”

TheCable reports that the governors who attended the meeting where Ubah’s defection was announced were Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos), Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna), Yahaya Bello (Kogi), Simon Lalong (Plateau), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi) and Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara).

Others were Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa), Ibrahim Gaidam (Yobe), Kashim Shettima (Borno), and Gboyega Oyetola (Osun).

What Ubah’s defection means in the senate numbers game. According to the results officially announced for the February 23 National Assembly elections across the country, APC won 63 seats while the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won 37 seats.

The YPP was the only other party outside of the two dominant ones with a seat in the senate. Ubah’s defection now means that the APC has 64 seats to the PDP’s 37, with the electoral commission yet to officially list the winners of eight seats.

Nigeria’s upper legislative chamber has a total of 109 seats with 3 Senators from each of the 36 states, plus one representative from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The 9th senate is yet to be inaugurated. Ubah, 47, is an oil and gas businessman and a member of the patronage network in Nigeria’s political economy.