The All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s ruling party, is getting stronger in the National Assembly. Many politicians from other parties are joining APC, which is changing the number of members in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. This is happening less than two years after the current Assembly started.
Right now, APC has 68 senators and about 207 members in the House of Representatives. This is more than when the Assembly began in June 2023. On June 12, Senator Neda Imasuen from the Labour Party, who represents Edo South, is expected to officially join APC. This will increase APC’s senators to 69.
There might be one more senator joining APC soon. Senator Ahmed Wadada Aliyu from Nasarawa West left the Social Democratic Party (SDP) recently and is expected to come back to APC. If that happens, APC will have 70 senators.
At the start, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had many members in the Senate and was almost equal to APC. But now, PDP has lost a lot of seats. The Senate started with 59 APC members, 36 PDP members, 8 from Labour Party (LP), and others from smaller parties. Now, the Senate looks like this: APC – 68; PDP – 30; LP – 5; SDP – 2; NNPP – 1; APGA – 1. Two seats in Edo and Anambra states are empty right now.
In the House of Representatives, APC started with 175 seats while the other parties had 182. Today, APC has grown to about 207 seats, and the opposition parties have dropped to around 150 seats.
Many well-known senators have left their parties to join APC. Some include Senator Ibrahim Danbaba (Sokoto South, PDP) in March 2024, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah (YPP, Anambra South) in October 2023, and Senator Ned Nwoko (Delta North, PDP) in February 2025. Recently, three senators from Kebbi—Adamu Aliero, Yahaya Abdullahi, and Garba Maidoki—joined APC after meeting President Bola Tinubu.
In the House of Representatives, defections started with Hon. Idris Salman from Kogi who left the ADC for APC in July 2024. After that, many PDP members left to join APC. Some of them are Hon. Chris Nkwonta (Abia), Hon. Sulaiman Abubakar (Zamfara), and Hon. Oluwole Oke (Osun).
The Labour Party, which did well in the 2023 elections, has also lost members to APC. On December 5, 2024, four LP members switched to APC. Others who left LP include Hon. Alfred Ajang (Plateau) and Hon. Sunday Umeha (Enugu).
In Delta State, six PDP lawmakers joined APC in May 2025 after the state governor Sheriff Oborevwori switched to APC. On the same day, two Labour Party members from Enugu joined PDP, showing that the opposition parties are also changing.
The NNPP has also lost members to APC, including Hon. Kabiru Usman and Hon. Abdullahi Sani. PDP’s numbers got smaller too when Hon. Oluwole Oke from Osun left.
Experts think more politicians might switch parties when the National Assembly returns from break. Akwa Ibom state might see changes because its governor, Umo Eno, left PDP recently. Akwa Ibom has two PDP senators and seven PDP members in the House right now.
