- Saraki leads trouble-shooting mission
BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – Immediate past President of the Nigerian Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki is on a trouble-shooting mission to Edo State over the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s decision to readjust its nominees for minority positions in the upper legislative chamber.
Saraki’s mission is coming against the backdrop of moves by the main opposition party’s national leadership to drop Senator Clifford Odia, representing Edo Central as Senate Deputy Minority Whip for Senator Sahabi Yau of Zamfara North .
The Zamfara State lawmaker is returning to the Ninth (9th) Senate, thanks to the Supreme Court judgment that sacked All Progressives Congress (APC)’s elected officials in Zamfara and replaced them with their PDP counterparts.
Sources close to the PDP National Secretariat, Wadata House, said swapping Senator Yau with Senator Odia is meant to promote equity and reflect federal character in the spread of Minority positions in both the Red and Green chambers of the National Assembly.
According to Forefront sources, hard pressed by its recapitulation on the choice of leaders, the PDP national leadership has therefore given Dr Saraki the task of calming expected frayed nerves in Edo State.
The former Senate president will be leading a peace mission to the South-South State with the hope of placating local PDP leaders and stakeholders in Senator Odia’s senatorial district over the development.
An insider hinted that pressure has continued to mount on the second term Edo lawmaker to accept in good faith the reversal of his nomination in the party’s overall interest.
He said the decision to overturn Odia’s nomination was arrived at based on the need to accommodate the North West geo-political zone in the distribution of positions in the ninth (9th) National Assembly.
A second term senator, Odia was first elected in 2015 while Yau was a member of the Seventh (7th) Senate but lost his re-election bid in 2015.
It was learnt that unlike the North-West region which Senator Yau is representing, Senator Odia’s South South zone has already cornered two of the eight minority positions in the National Assembly.
Hon Kingsley Chinda, representing Obio/Akpor Federal Constituency of Rivers State in the South South, is nominated as Minority Leader in the House of Representatives.
For the upper Legislative Chamber, the opposition PDP has picked Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) as its choice for Senate Minority Leader, with Emmanuel Bwacha (Taraba South) retaining the post of Deputy Minority Leader, which he held in the eighth (8th) Senate.
The only Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Philip Aduda, also retains the Minority Whip position he occupied in the eighth (8th) Senate.
When the lawmakers resume from their two weeks break on Tuesday, July 2, 2019, the PDP leadership is expected to officially communicate its decisions on the Minority principal officers to the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila for their formal announcement on the floor of both chambers.
