The All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday, said that there was no court order barring the 11 former PDP Senators from defecting to the APC, contrary to the misinformation being peddled in some quarters.

This was contained in a statement issued in Ilorin, Kwara State, by the National Interim Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

Mohammed said that the only existing court order was to the effect that the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives should maintain the status quo concerning defecting lawmakers.

According to him: "What this order means is that neither the President of the Senate nor the Speaker of the House can declare vacant the seats of the defecting lawmakers. It does not mean the letter of notification from defecting members cannot be read on the floor of the chambers.

"We are not asking that the issue of the defection should be discussed or debated on the floor of the Senate. All we are saying is that the Senate President should read the letter of notification."

APC said that in view of this, the argument that the defecting letter could not be read on the floor, so as not to contravene the Senate's Standing Rules that precluded the upper chamber from discussing any matter that was already in court, did not apply in this case.