Senator Ireti Kingibe Defects from Labour Party, Joins ADC
ABUJA — The Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ireti Kingibe, has defected from the Labour Party (LP) to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Announcing her defection to reporters in Abuja, Senator Kingibe described the move as both “deliberate and strategic.”
She revealed that her formal entry into the ADC would be marked by what she called “noise and fanfare.”
“I’m totally and completely committed to ADC,” she said. “But obviously, as the senator representing the Federal Capital Territory, don’t expect me to just take a lunch break and go and collect a card. I want to do so with noise and fanfare.”
When asked about her confidence in the ADC’s leadership and the coalition it is building, the senator drew an analogy to a growing child.
“It’s something that is evolving. So you cannot say while your child is still crawling that you are not happy with how he’s going to run. You wait. We are growing.”
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Responding to concerns that her defection might cause her to lose her Senate seat based on constitutional provisions, Kingibe argued that the LP is currently split into two factions, a situation which she said legally allows her to move without penalty.
“I ask you to please read the constitution. There are two clear factions of the Labour Party,” she stated. “This is the perfect definition that the constitution gives for somebody to decamp without penalty. So you say I should stay in Labour Party. Which faction of Labour Party do you want me to stay in?”
She further explained that even the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had noted the split, receiving two sets of results and candidates, though it did not accept either.
“Even the time when we didn’t have two clear factions, did you see anybody implementing it?” she questioned. “But I do follow the law. And if there were not two distinct factions of Labour Party, I would not presume to decamp, because that is unconstitutional. But they are. And this is the definition that the constitution gave why it would be okay to decamp to anywhere I wanted to go to. I just chose ADC.”
By PRNigeria
