to persuade aggrieved Peoples Democratic Party senators not to carry
out their plan to dump the ruling party for the All Progressives
Congress, investigation byThe Metro has revealed.
A source close to the Senate leadership said that the Senate
President, David Mark, had personally held a series of meetings with
some of the aggrieved senators with a view to making them have a
rethink.
"Meetings are being held to prevent the PDP senators from going ahead
with their planned action. I am sure the peace moves are yielding
fruitful results, " he told one of our correspondents on condition of
anonymity on Sunday night.
He however did not say when and where the meetings were held and the
number of aggrieved lawmakers in attendance.
One of the senators, who also confirmed that the meetings were at
the instance of the Presidency, however said most of them had made up
their minds to defect to the APC.
The lawmakers, who also did not want his name in print, added that
apart from the meetings, Mark had made it a point to contact each of
them daily on the telephone, advising them to remain in the PDP.
The senator said, "Already some of us have made up our minds to
defect and there is no amount of pressure that would stop us. We will
formally write the Senate president when we resume in January.
"However, there are some of us who believe we could still listen
to them. They have been discussing. There have been meetings upon
meetings which, from all clear indications, are at the instance of the
Presidency."
At the moment, the PDP has 73 senators as against the APC's 33,
Labour Party's three and one for the All Progressives Grand Alliance.
In the House of Representatives however, members who defected to the
APC have vowed not to return to the PDP despite alleged pressure on
them to do so.
"No amount of pressure will force us back to PDP. Our decision is a
done deal and there is no point crying when the head is already off",
one of the defectors, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, told The Metro in Abuja on
Monday.
Mohammed, a lawmaker from Kwara State, is the Chairman, House
Committee on Media and Public Affairs.
Thirty seven PDP lawmakers in the House had defected to the APC on
December 18, citing "factions" in the ruling party as reason.
The development gave the APC a slim majority advantage over the PDP,
with the former controlling 172 members, while the latter dropped to
171.
Findings showed that in a bid to compel them to return to the party,
the defectors had been put under pressure by the PDP and the
Presidency.
One of them said, "They have used all sorts of tactics, including the
carrot, assuring us of return tickets in 2015.
"They have used the political machinery in our states and
constituencies to get us to comply, but it is not working."
The PDP and the Presidency have since asked the Speaker of the House,
Aminu Tambuwal, and the Independent National Electoral Commission to
declare the seats of the affected lawmakers vacant.
But, the lawmakers stated on Monday that they knew that such a thing
was likely to happen, a reason they first obtained a court order
stopping it before they defected.
Speaking on the issue, the Chairman, House Committee on Justice, Mr.
Ali Ahmad, expressed surprise that, in spite of the subsisting court
order, the Presidency was still bent on declaring their seats vacant.
Ahmad, a defector, observed that as "recently as just days ago", the
Presidency was still talking of declaring their seats vacant.
He added, "For us, there is no point commenting on this threat other
than to wait and watch.
"The matter is in court; the threat by the Presidency to declare our
seats vacant is contemptuous of the court decision.
"That is the subject of the matter in court and the court has ruled
that our seats should remain intact.
"Therefore, it is the highest level of contempt for the Presidency to
be insisting that our seats should be declared vacant in disobedience
to the court order."
Ahmad argued that it would have been better for the Presidency to be
"seeking some kind of political solution to the problem, not to
continue to insist on declaring our seats vacant as if a court order
no longer means anything in this country."
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