- As PDP regains House majority
Senate President, David Mark, yesterday foiled desperate efforts by lawmakers with sympathy for the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC from actualizingtheir defection bid.
But in the House of Representative
s, Speaker Aminu Tambuwal ruled in favour of defections with the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP harvesting five new lawmakers from the opposition and thus gaining back its majority.
At the Senate, Mark rejected attempts by the Senator Bukola Saraki-led defecting PDP senators to persuade him to read their letter of defection at the plenary.
Bringing up the matter through Order 15 and 40(a) of the Senate Rule, Saraki, apparently hiding under matters of privilege, informed the leadership of the Senate that he has defected to APC with the rest of the 10 senators of PDP extraction he claimed to have listed in the letter.
Having allowed him to make his case, Mark ruled Saraki out of order stressing that Order 53(5) of senate Rule forbids the senate from mentioning or discussing any matter that is before a competent Court of Jurisdiction, adding that until the matter is decided by the court, there was nothing the senate could do.
Then, in what looked like a drama, four other defecting senators in the persons of Senators Magnus Abe, (Rivers South-East ), Wilson Ake, (Rivers West), Aisha Jummai Alhassan (Taraba North) and Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa West) took their turns to tell the senate that they have defected to APC , saying that there is no going back to PDP.
Briefing senate Correspondents after plenary, Senate spokesman, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe explained that the implication of Mark’s action in ruling out the Orders of the defecting senators was that their defection to APC was not authorized by the senate, adding that it further implied that,” they are still members of PDP.”
PDP regains control
The number of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the House of Representatives rose to 175 with additional five members of the All Progressives Congress, APC defecting to the ruling party yesterday.
Speaker of the House, Rt Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, who presided over plenary, read the letters of the defecting lawmakers shortly after approving last week’s votes and proceedings.
He clarified that he was duty bound to read the letters on the floor of the House when APC lawmakers appeared not to be comfortable with the development.
This development now reduces the number of APC lawmakers in the House to 168.
Tambuwal gave the names of the five defecting lawmakers as: Lawan Shehu (Kano), Abdulsalam Adamu (Kano) and Bature Umar Mohammed (Sokoto).
Others include: Umar Sani and Shehu Ibrahim Gusau both from Zamfara states.
However, Rep Isa mohammed Ashiru from Kaduna state, was the only lawmaker, who defected from PDP to APC.
After the last letter was read, the shout of ‘APC shame’ ‘PDP power’ rented the air by PDP lawmakers.
Meanwhile, before the debate on the 2014 budget commenced proper, the Speaker called on the House chairman on Rules and Business, Rep Albert Sam Tsokwa, to present the six-man advisory report constituted last week on whether the abridged 2014 budget was truly in violation of Section 21 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, FRA.
Nigerian Pilot recalls that the debate on the budget was last week suspended after Rep Emmanuel Jime raised a point of order that the abridged budget was in violation of the FRA.
He insisted that the budget must include the estimates of critical money spinning agencies like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.