The threat by some aggrieved Peoples Democratic Party senators to defect to the All Progressive Congress will not earn the APC the majority status in the senate, emerging scenario indicated.
Some PDP senators were said to have concluded plans to defect to the APC when the upper chamber resumes from its Christmas/New Year break next week.
Thirty-seven members of the lower chamber of the National Assembly recently renounced their membership of the ruling PDP and moved to the APC, a development that has given the opposition party a simple majority in the House of Representatives with 172 to the PDP’s 171.
Most of the APC and PDP senators who spoke on the issue on Monday were also unanimous in admitting that the PDP would remain in the majority in the senate after the defection.
But there were strong indications that both Senators Bukola Saraki and Shaaba Lafiagi from Kwara State; as well as Senators Magnus Abe and Wilson Ake from Rivers State; and Senators Bello Gwarzo and Basheer Mohammed from Kano, had concluded plans to defect.
It was not clear yet whether Senator Nenadi Usman from Kaduna State and her female colleague from Taraba, Senator Aisha Al – Hassan, would defect.
Also there was no evidence that others, who were part of the 22 senators listed as plaintiffs in the suit filed by the aggrieved lawmakers to prevent the National Assembly leadership from declaring their seats vacant in the event that they defected, had made serious move to change camp in the upper legislative chamber.
Those who were not making noticeable moves to defect included, Senators Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa West); Danjuma Goje (Gombe Central); Ali Ndume (Borno South); Ahmed Zannah (Borno Central); and Simeon Ajibola (Kwara South).
Others are, Bindowo Jubrilla (Adamawa North); Abdulaziz Usman (Jigawa North-East); Danladi Sankara (Jigawa North-West); Abdulmumuni Hassan (Jigawa South-West); Hassan Barata (Adamawa South), Umaru Dahiru (Sokoto South), and Ahmad Maccido (Sokoto North); Ibrahim Gobir (Sokoto East); Isa Galaudu (Kebbi North); and Ahmed Alkali (Gombe North).
Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, told our correspondent through an SMS that the defectors could not place the APC in the majority status in the senate.
Abaribe said the planned defection could not alter the leadership structure of the Senate.
Senator Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara State) told our correspondent in a telephone interview that the current figure of senators planning to shift base from the PDP to the APC was not enough to dislodge the former from its majority status in the senate.
Marafa said, “Politics is a game of figure and figure doesn’t tell lies. If less than 20 out of 72 PDP senators are defecting to the APC to join the 33 senators there, the PDP will still remain the majority.
“However, serious politics has started and the APC is committed, more than ever before, to take over of not only the leadership of the country in 2015, but also that of the two chambers of the National Assembly by the power of God”
At the moment, the PDP has 72 senators while the APC has 33. Labour Party has three while the All Progressives Grand Alliance has one member in the upper legislative chamber.
Source: Punch
