Last Tuesday, Senator Bukola Saraki and Senator Ekweremadu were elected as senate president and deputy senate president respectively in an unpalatable manner as the vote was conducted behind the backs of ruling APC senators. They were elected covertly while APC senators were at the nearby International Conference Centre in Abuja for meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari to resolve the issue of National Assembly leadership.
Unhappy with the outcome, the APC has threatened to discipline Senator Saraki and its other senators who connived with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to thwart its directives. APC senators had agreed to elect Senator Ahmad Lawan of Yobe State as senate president and some of them are refusing to recognise Senator Saraki's election.
Yesterday, the aggrieved senators insisted that Senator Ekweremadu resign as one of the conditions that would make them recognise Senator Saraki as the senate president. Loyal to Senator Lawan, the unhappy lawmakers who have organised themselves into a group called the Senate Unity Forum (Suf), have stated, however, that they have nothing personal against Senators Saraki and Ekweremadu.
Initially, the APC had rejected the result of the election, insisting that Senator Saraki and Hon Yakubu Dogara, elected as the speaker of the House of Representatives and their supporters would be sanctioned for defying the position of the party. However, yesterday, APC chairman Chief John Oyegun said the party had accepted Senator Saraki as the senate president.
Suf spokesperson Senator Kabir Marafa, said, however, that the pro-Saraki senators must explain why they disregarded all the arrangements put in place by the leaders of the APC to produce consensus candidates for posts of senate president and deputy senate president. He called for a thorough investigation into why the clerk of the National Assembly was in a hurry to conduct the elections without following the normal procedure as contained in the Senate Standing Orders.
Senator Marafa added: “We demand that Senator Ike Ekweremadu must resign his position because he needed at least 55 senators to emerge as deputy senate president. Ekweremadu is a lawyer and an experienced lawmaker, so he knows he is not qualified to win the election with 54 votes.”
He further said the pro-Saraki lawmakers should tell the party leadership why they rushed to the chamber on June 9 and hurriedly conducted the election, while the rest of the APC lawmakers were expecting the arrival of President Buhari. However, Abdullahi Jalo, the deputy publicity secretary of the PDP, objected to the demands of the pro-Lawan senators.
Mr Jalo said: “To ask distinguished Senator Ike Ekweremadu to relinquish a mandate freely given to him by his colleagues, will be a disservice not only to the senate but to this country. What everybody should be concerned about now, is how to move forward because the issue of election in the senate has come and gone."
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