By Oluwaseye Ogunsanya
Claim
A trending video surfaced online, particularly on Twitter and WhatsApp, showing the senate president, Senator Ahmad Lawan, announcing his exit from the APC to PDP.
Full Text
A trending video surfaced online, particularly on Twitter and WhatsApp, showing the senate president, Senator Ahmad Lawan, announcing his exit from the APC to PDP.
The 26 seconds video clip showed Lawan reading a defection letter purportedly claimed to be his.
“…It is with deep sense of responsibility that I write to inform your excellency and indeed my entire colleagues in the senate of my decision to defect from my political party the All Progressives Congress (APC) to People’s Democratic Party (PDP)” he said.
Conclusion
The claim that Ahmad Lawan has defected from APC to PDP is false. The video was cutout from an original full video wherein Lawan was reading the defection letter by Senator Muhammad Adamu Ailero of Kebbi State. It was cutout to create the impression that the Senate President has defected from APC to PDP.
Verification
Checks by FactCheckElections shows that the 26 seconds video clip was cut out from the original 3 minutes 25 seconds clip posted by viabletv.com here and captioned “Shocked as APC Loses Senator Adamu Aliero PDP”
The senate president was reading the letter by Senator Muhammad Adamu Ailero of Kebbi State, informing his colleagues at plenary of his defection from the APC to the PDP over issues in the state chapter of the APC.
Further checks reveals that the cut-out was from the introduction of the letter addressed to the Senate President. 0:44 seconds to 1 minutes 02 seconds shows the Senate President saying “…It is with deep sense of responsibility that I write to inform your excellency and indeed my entire colleagues in the senate of my decision to defect from my political party the All Progressives Congress (APC) to People’s Democratic Party (PDP)”. This created the impression that he is announcing his defection from the APC to PDP
Meanwhile the Senate President in his reaction, urged the general public to discountenance the viral video purporting his defection from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while describing it as the handiwork of mischief-makers.
Lawan’s Ordeal
The Senate President had contested for the Office of the President in the APC presidential primary election but he lost out to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate.
Since then, he has been trying to secure the party’s senatorial ticket for the Yobe North but his bid to return is meeting stiff resistance from Yobe North senatorial candidate, Mr Bashir Machina, who have vowed not to step down for the senate president.
However, the APC has replaced the name of Machina with Lawan’s as seen on the list of Yobe senatorial candidates sent from the party to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Bashir Machina in his reaction to the development at a press briefing on Friday night, insisted that he hasn’t stepped down for anyone, he added that he would seek redress from the National Working Committee of the party for such illegal and undemocratic move.
Lawan has repeatedly represented the constituency for 23 years; first as the member of the House of Representatives for Bade/Jakusko Federal Constituency between 1999- 2007, and the senator for the Yobe North district from 2007 to date.