Apparently sure that the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, would continue to play politics with their defection letter, Dr. Bukola Saraki and four other senators on Tuesday formally announced their defection to the All Progressives Congress.
The five senators are among the 11 that had written formally to the Senate president, informing him of their decision to defect.
However, Mark has refused to read the letter on the floor of the Senate.
The last that was heard about it was that Mark would seek legal opinion because of the case pending in court regarding defection.
Senator Saraki led the way by raising a point of order and announced his defection to the APC.
He was followed by Abdullahi Adamu, Wilson Ake, Magnus Abe and Aisha Alhassan in that order.
They also raised point of order to announce their defection individually.
However, Mark overruled the five senators, positing that such would not be entertained until when the case pending in court is resolved.
The leadership of the Peoples Democratic party has secured a court injunction directing the National Assembly leadership to maintain status quo pending the determination of the substantive suit filed by the party.
Speaking on the Senate president’s position, the Minority Leader of the Senate, Senator Gorge Akume, expressed displeasure that the issue of the defecting lawmakers had not been handled properly.
Akume argued that it was a breach of the concerned senators’ right.
Reacting, Mark said: “It is wrong for him to comment on a matter that is before a competent court of law.”
Abe spoke with newsmen after the plenary.
He said: “We have absolute confidence that this matter will be sorted out soon.
“Senator David Mark has proven himself as a statesman and he knows the meaning of freedom of association.
“What you are witnessing is the internal politics of the Senate.
“We have confidence in the leadership.
“There is a problem in the Senate and we believe that Senator David Mark has over the years proven himself as an astute statesman, democrat and politician.
“We still believe that this is a problem that has a political solution and what we need to do as senators under our leadership is to look for a solution that will satisfy the desires of individual senators, satisfy the desires of individual citizens of the country to see greater democracy, satisfy the constitution to allow free association of persons and I think the challenge before the Senate is to look for the solution and we are still working together.”
Also speaking, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, said: “The Senate has rules and these senators are aware of the rules.
“The Senate president has not done anything special.
“He is only playing by the rules of the Senate.”
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