APGA presses Senate to declare Abaribe’s seat vacant over ADC defection

The Abia State chapter of the All Progressives Grand Alliance has escalated its confrontation with Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, formally demanding that the Senate declare his Abia South seat vacant and warning the veteran lawmaker to resign honourably before the chamber is compelled to act — as a bitter dispute over whether he resigned or was expelled from APGA deepens into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

Speaking at a press briefing in Umuahia, the party’s leadership, fronted by former Abia State House of Assembly member Obinna Ichita, appealed to the Senate not to allow Abaribe to “abscond” with the party’s mandate to the African Democratic Congress. “My advice to him is to honourably vacate his seat, instead of having the seat declared vacant by the National Assembly — that would be the height of national embarrassment and we wouldn’t want him to be embarrassed,” Ichita said.

APGA State Chairman Ambassador Sunday Onukwubiri, speaking alongside party chieftains at the briefing, accused Abaribe of misrepresenting his status and misleading the Senate. “He was invited to respond to allegations but failed to do so. He later resigned and is now attempting to mislead the public by claiming he was sacked,” a party official said. “This is not a witch-hunt. We are acting in good conscience. Senator Abaribe betrayed the party and should relinquish the mandate.”

The row erupted last week when Abaribe joined eight other senators on the floor of the chamber to formally announce their defection from their respective parties to the ADC. While the Senate leadership accepted the defections of the eight other lawmakers — who left the PDP and Labour Party, Abaribe’s case immediately sparked constitutional objections, with Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin arguing that no crisis or division existed within APGA to justify his departure.

Abaribe told the Senate he was defecting due to an irreconcilable leadership crisis within APGA, and insisted he had in fact been expelled from the party in September 2025 — a claim APGA flatly denies. APGA’s national spokesperson Chukwuemeka Nwokoro pointed out the contradiction at the heart of Abaribe’s position: “If Senator Abaribe had been sacked in September 2025 as he claimed, he would not have submitted his resignation letter in December 2025. Any person expelled from a party is no longer a member, but here, after three months of the purported sack, he filed a resignation letter. It is clear that APGA has neither problems nor crises anywhere in the entire nation.” The party also accused Abaribe of attempting to source a forged expulsion letter to present to the Senate — a charge the senator angrily rejected.

Abaribe has defended himself vigorously. “When you are no longer a member of a party by virtue of being sent away, you have the fundamental right of association to join another party,” he said. He argued that an indefinite suspension lasting more than six months was functionally indistinguishable from expulsion. “If a party places you on indefinite suspension for more than six months, what does that mean? It means you have been told to go elsewhere, and that is exactly what I did,” he stated, adding that the proper process for removing him from office was a recall by his constituents.

The constitutional stakes of the dispute are significant. Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele invoked Section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution, which provides that a senator must vacate his seat if he defects to another party before the expiration of his tenure, unless the defection results from a division or merger within the original party. He urged the Senate President to rule immediately.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio directed Abaribe to submit a copy of the alleged expulsion letter within one week, while also giving the senator until the chamber’s next sitting to reconsider his defection letter or face a constitutional determination. “We’ll give you until our next sitting to reconsider, or the chamber will take a position,” Akpabio stated.

Abaribe, who was first elected to the Senate in 2007 and has since served multiple terms under different party platforms, is one of the most experienced and vocal opposition figures in the upper chamber. He dismissed the APGA allegations as scandalous, asserting that his electoral success was based on personal support from his constituents and questioning why his defection should attract consequences when others have acted similarly. “My name is Enyinnaya Abaribe. There are certain things you should know I cannot do,” he said.