Over 52 members of the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly who are set to dump the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the All Progressives Congress, APC, have declared that even the Senate president, David Mark, cannot stop any of them.
The Senators had earlier in a joint letter noted with concern the threats by private and public officials to declare their seats vacant if they dump the People’s Democratic Party for other political parties.
However, Senate sources last night disclosed to Leadership Newspaper that although the move to declare the seats of the aggrieved PDP lawmakers vacant had been in the offing, Mark had distanced himself from it.
But the affected Senators, who argued that defection was a norm in Nigerian political history, asked Mark not to “support any plan to cause any setback to the current political dispensation in Nigeria.”
Among the Senators who signed the letter written to Mark were Chris Ngige, George Akume, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, Magnus Abe, Wilson Ake, Mohammed Danjuma Goje and Alhassan Aisha Jummai.
Others were Mohammed Ali Ndume, Ahmed Maccido, Kabidu Gaya, Prof. Olusola Adeyeye, Oluremi Tinubu and Solomon Ewuga.
The Senators have described the threats to declare vacant their seats as “mischievous and capable of undermining the independence of the legislature and taking away the mandate given to them as the representatives of the Nigerian people.”
They said, “We hereby note that this is not the first experience in the Senate where some Senators have moved to political parties of their choices as a result of one reason or the other, whereas, such has not caused any political tension or intimidation. It is our resolve that the Senate should maintain and sustain this principle and precedence.
“It is our resolve that we do not support any attempt that the seat of any Senator proposing to defect to another political party be declared vacant except by recall process from their constituents or by pronouncement of a court of competent and final jurisdiction, rather than politics of intimidation, harassment and comment that could jeopardise the peaceful co-existence of unity of Nigeria.
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