. PDP regains majority in House of Representatives, caucus tackles Tambuwal
Again, tension reigned in the Senate for the greater part of the plenary yesterday over the defection of Peoples Democratic Party senators to All Progressives Congress. The 11 senators elected under the platform of the PDP, insisted that Senate President David Mark should read out their defection letter to the opposition APC.
The situation, which had been carefully managed in the recent past by the leadership of the red chamber to avoid degeneration into some embarrassment to the Senate almost boiled over yesterday.
This was despite the closed-door session called by the leadership of the Senate to address the matter, which unfortunately failed to assuage the anger of the defecting senators who preferred instead that the matter be thrown into the open once and for all.
The 11 defecting senators came all out yesterday to demand that their defection letter to the opposition APC be publicly read in the open by the Senate President. But the Senate President David Mark stood his grounds as he insisted that he would not do the will of the agitated senators.
He said that doing so would amount to the contravention of the rule of the Senate and by extension the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which they both swore to protect.
The situation became so tense that five of the senators ignored the arguments of the Senate president and went ahead to formally announce their defection to the opposition APC.
The senators including Senators Bukola Saraki (Kwara Central), Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa West), Magnus Abe (Rivers South- East) and Aisha Jumai Alhassan (Taraba North) cited order 14 of the Senate standing order to declare their various defection to the APC.
The fifth, Wilson Ake (Rivers East), said his action was predicated on order 43 of the senate standing order. “I want to inform this hallowed chamber and Nigerians that I have defected from PDP to APC,” the five defecting senators took turns to announce with slight alterations.
To each of the announcements, Mark’s response was predicated on Order 53(5) of the Senate, which precludes the red chamber of the parliament from taking any action on any matter that is already before the court of competent jurisdiction.
Order 53(5) reads: “Reference shall not be made to any matter on which a judicial decision is pending in such a way as might in the opinion of the President of the Senate prejudice the interest of the parties thereto.
“This matter is in court; therefore, we shall make no further reference or take any action to it in line without standing order.”
It was gathered that before yesterday’s sitting, the defecting senators had on the previous Monday evening, sent an emissary to the Senate President’s Apo mansion residence, wanting to know if they (defecting senators) could withdrew their court case for Mark to read their defection letter.
When the lawmakers could not elicit the assurances of Mark on the matter, they decided to adopt a confrontational approach to the issue.
Indications that the opposition senators, who were in sympathy with the 11 defecting PDP senators were spoiling for a battle emerged early enough yesterday. For the first time in the life of the current session of the Senate, opposition senators rebelled and failed to line the aisle as has been the tradition to exchange pleasantries with the principal officers as they filed into the chamber yesterday.
Even the Senate Minority Leader, Senator George Akume, who traditionally leads the pack of the opposition members of the principal officers in the train, revolted yesterday as he marched alone at the extreme left hand corner of the aisle to exchange banters with the opposition senators on their seats one after another.
Before the principal officers marched in, some of the opposition senators were seen in groups discussing in hush tones, apparently trying to perfect their strategies for the day. Apparently sensing the mood of the opposition senators, Mark sat in his seat and watched in awe for about 15 minutes, after which he signalled to the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, and the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, to his seat.
After about three minutes, Mark told the Sergeant- at-arms to clear the chambers for a closed-door meeting.
The meeting lasted for about 18 minutes, after which the Senate was opened for plenary. It was gathered that during the brief plenary, Mark used the opportunity to again call for caution from the agitated senators and reiterated his earlier position not to read their defection letter in view of Order 53(5).
The defecting senators were said not to be convinced by the logic of Mark and preferred instead that the issue be discussed in the open.
It was when all efforts to dissuade the defecting senators failed that Mark decided to go ahead with the plenary.
Upon resumption, it was Senator Bukola who first raised a point of order. After due recognition by Mark, he (Saraki), citing Order 14 of the Senate standing order on privileges announced that, “I will like to bring to the attention of the senate that I and 10 other senators of the PDP have moved over to APC.”
In his response, Mark said: “That cannot amount to the breach of your privilege because as you are aware, the matter is in court as a result we cannot make any reference to it. The matter is on court. You went to court and this President cannot rule on it.
Because the matter is in court I shall not have any further discussions on it the order is very clear, therefore I rule you out of order.”
Despite Mark’s ruling on the point of order raised by Saraki, Senators Abe, Ake, Alhassan and Adamu took turns to disrupt the day’s proceedings as they raised the same point of order, citing same order 14, in each occasion also declaring their defection to the opposition APC, even as Mark repeated the same ruling he made with regards to Saraki.
Akume’s insistence that Mark should read the defection letter was resisted by the Senate president who asked Akume what particular privilege of his was breached by not reading the letter.
It was not sure what next step the defecting senators would take again, even as they stormed out of the chamber in anger.
Meanwhile, because of the fowl mood of the senate, all other matters on the order paper of the senate were adjourned till another legislative day.
This was also as the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Abubakar Mohammed, who was scheduled to appear before the senate to explain the circumstances surrounding the alleged shooting of Senator Abe with a rubber bullet by the police in Rivers State failed to show up for the event. Senate spokesman, Senator EnyinnayaAbaribe who briefed senate correspondents at the close of plenary explained that the inability of Mohammed to appear before the senate was due to his duty schedule.
The Senate is expected to commence the screening of the new ministerial nominees who are to replace the nine ministers sacked by President Goodluck Jonathan last September today. In the House of Representatives, the controversy on which party becomes the majority was yesterday laid to rest as PDP now has clear majority following the defection of five members of the APC to its fold, while one member from the ruling party defected to the opposition.
The spate of defections has now positioned PDP as majority in the House. The PDP now has 178 members as against APC’s 168. The Speaker, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal announced the names of the defectors while reading their letters one after the other. The announcement of the defection by the speaker elicited applause from PDP members to the extent that the deputy leader, Hon Leo Ogor went to Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, the minority leader to tell him that he was still in charge and unshakable as the House deputy leader.
Those who defected from APC to PDP as announced by the Speaker, are: Hons. Lawan Shehu- Bichi (Kano), Abdulsalam Adamu (Kano), Sani Umar (Zamfara), Ibrahim ShehuGusau (Zamfara) and Umar Bature (Sokoto). Hon. Isa Mohammed Ashiru (Kaduna) was the sole defector from PDP to APC. At a point, Gbajabiamila raised a point of order saying that the Speaker was spending much time in reading the names of the defected members but the reaction of the PDP member prevented him from continue with his point of order.
The struggle to have the control of the leadership of the House has assumed another dimension as members of the PDP caucus at their meeting last Monday in Abuja demanded to know where the Speaker belongs.
Some members who stormed out of the meeting in annoyance expressed concerned about the way and manner in which members of APC were controlling activities in the House, blaming this on the speaker who was neither here nor there, situation which has made PDP to be vulnerable. The meeting was attended by the Leader of the House, Hon MulikatAdeola- Akande and the Deputy Leader, Hon Leo Ogo.
But the speaker and his deputy were conspicuously absent and it was reliably gathered that the duo had not for once attended the caucus meeting.
Our correspondent learnt that with the continuous defection of APC members strengthening the numbers of PDP legislators in the House, the lawmakers are demanding that the speaker should declare where he belong, instead of playing hide and seek game, which was not in the interest of any political party this time around.
With today’s defection PDP members has gone to 179 while APC now has 167. It was gathered that with this development, the PDP members were no longer comfortable with the speaker hence the agitation that he should declare his position.
Sources close to the meeting also revealed that members were not particularly happy that the speaker was not attending PDP activities whereas he kept attending those of APC, even when he was not invited.
A prominent member of the House from the North was said to have stormed out of the meeting in annoyance after stating his position that within one week he had counted more than six APC functions which the speaker attended whereas it was pretty difficult for him to attend PDP activities.
A member, who did not want his name in print maintained that members knew that the deputy speaker, Hon EmekaIheaohia was merely covering the speaker because he was still in the PDP but the speaker has to tell Nigerians where he belong
“He cannot continue to pretend that he is still in the PDP. We know that he is hobnobbing with the opposition party against the ruling party that gave him the platform but he was now using his position to help APC spread its tentacles across the country.
“We cannot continue to pretend that all his well and allow the speaker to continue to destroy PDP, therefore it is against this background that we are calling him to declare his position publicly instead of playing the ostrich,” he said.
Meanwhile, APC yesterday accused the PDP of using public funds to lure back some of the federal lawmakers. In a statement issued in Lagos by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the PDP, is dangling $2m (N340m) to each Senator who returns to its fold, $1m (N170m) to each member of the House of Representatives and $10m (N1.7bn) to each ‘leader who abandons the APC for PDP.
The party said for federal legislators from Rivers State, the price was set at $5m (N850m) According to the party, “No amount of inducements will stop the change that is in the horizon, because the long-suffering people of Nigeria are ready and eager to vote out the PDP next year.”
The party said the five House of Representatives members who have taken the PDP’s killer bait and returned to the party are nothing but dirty traitors, adding that when they defected to the APC, they were neither forced to do so nor given any incentive beyond the rare opportunity offered them to be a part of the looming change.”
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