Defections: APC, PDP shift supremacy battle to Senate chamber
Senators of the ruling All Progressives Congress and their counterparts in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party have vowed to resume hostilities over which party controls the majority in the upper chamber when the Senate resumes plenary on September 25.
Controversy surrounded the defection of 14 senators from the APC to the PDP as well as the African Democratic Congress; this pitted members of the two dominant political parties against one another.
There are 109 seats in the Senate with only two seats declared vacant following the death of two Senators. The deceased Senators are Ali Wakili (APC, Bauchi-South) and Mustapha Bukar (APC Katsina-North).
The Senator Ahmed Lawan-led APC caucus had after the defection of 14 APC Senators claimed that his party still maintained its majority status with 52 members while the PDP had 50; the ADC, three and APGA, two.
But two of the Senators who left the APC, Rafiu Ibrahim (Kwara-South) and Isa Misau (Bauchi-Central), claimed in a statement they jointly signed that the PDP was now in the majority.
While APC Senators had asked the Senate President, Bukola Saraki to resign for leaving the APC, PDP Senators insisted he couldn’t be forced out because he now belonged to the party they claimed had become the majority.
Senator Dino Melaye (PDP, Kogi), on Sunday, said the PDP would prove it was now the majority party in the Senate when the National Assembly reconvenes in September.
Melaye said, “The PDP, as I speak to you, clearly has the majority in the Senate. It is not about noise making or continuous Presidential Villa visitations. The APC senators have visited the Villa four times within one week. The Villa is now a pilgrimage centre.
“The numbers they are brandishing; definitely they are not talking of senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, maybe they include some senators from Mali or Ghana who are on their list. When we resume, seats would be allocated by majority and minority, and seats would be labelled with names. Then you will see clearly the party with the majority.”
The senator also berated the National Chairman, APC, Adams Oshiomhole, for claiming that the seat of the Senate president belonged to the APC.
Oshiomhole had asked Saraki to resign for leaving the APC.
Melaye said, “For those who are saying that Saraki should resign, I am so disappointed in the National Chairman of APC. He did not take time to look at the Constitution and our extant laws, to know that crowns are worn in the kingdoms, villages and communities; that there is no crown in the National Assembly.”
“But he has appropriated the seat of the Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to a political party. That is intellectual stagnancy.”
