THE NEW LOOK OF THE NIGERIA HOUSE OF REPS TROUBLES JONATHAN & OLD PDP

The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was last night locked in a meeting with the remnants of the party caucus in the House of Representatives in Transcorp Hotel, Abuja. Last night's meeting was one of several carrot and stick options initiated by the party hierarchy to hold other fidgety legislators contemplating leaving the party. The day before the meeting 37 members of the PDP caucus in the House defected to the All Progressives Congress, APC turning the once dominant majority into a minority.

One of the responses from the presidency was the decision of President Goodluck Jonathan to absent himself from the presentation of the 2014 budget proposals to the National Assembly. In his stead, the coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala presented the proposals to the two houses of the National Assembly. It was the first time that a sitting and fit president would present the country's financial projections to the legislature in absentia.

Stakeholders were, however, divided whether the president was right to absent himself from the presentation or not.

The absence of the president some alleged, was out of apprehension that the APC members and especially the new ones just decamped from the PDP would embarrass the president by booing him.

It was, however, learnt that this year was not the first time that such threats of booing the president were perceived.

One source revealed that in the past when such threats were made, the then Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly, Senator Joy Emodi took time to identify the source of such threats and worked on them to mollify them and sometimes, got some of the members to clap for the president during his budget speech.

However, Mrs. Emodi was eased out of office few months ago following an alleged face off between her and some presidency officials who sought to create what she allegedly described as a parallel and divisive support structure for the presidency in the National Assembly.

Wednesday's defection inevitably made the PDP to for the first time since the advent of democratic rule in 1999 to lose its plurality of members in the House of Representatives as the party slipped in membership strength from 208 to 171.

Credits: Vanguard