A bill aimed at restricting the frequent defection of federal lawmakers between political parties has passed its second reading in the House of Representatives. The proposed amendment to Section 68(1g) of the 1999 Constitution requires National Assembly members to formally resign from their current party before switching to another. Recently, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have seen a surge in defections, with opposition lawmakers crossing over to the ruling All Progressives Congress. Clause 1 of the bill seeks to amend Section 68(g) by inserting the following immediately after the word “elected”: “Section 68(1) and (2) provide that ‘No member of the Senate or House of Representatives shall be deemed to have validly defected to another political party unless they have first submitted a written letter of resignation to the political party on whose platform they were elected, and such resignation has been duly communicated to the National Chairman or Secretary of the party through a verifiable medium, including but not limited to physical delivery with an official acknowledgement of receipt, electronic mail or other legally recognised means of documented transmission.’”