Saraki set to declare Akpabio's position vacant when senate resumes to discuss supplementary budget

SENATE president Senator Bukola Saraki is set to declare the position of the minority leader vacant when the upper chamber reconvenes shortly to discuss President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2019 election supplementary budget request.

Last week, Senator Godswill Akpabio resigned from his position as the senate minority leader following his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC). Over the last fortnight, the senate has been on a recess but with senators due to reconvene following a request from the presidency with it to consider a budgetary amendment, resolving the issue of its leadership will become a thorny issue.

In what has been a tense and dramatic few weeks, Senator Saraki himself left the APC for the PDP and the ruling party has been pressurising him to resign his position. Senator Saraki has been resisting this move, saying he was elected by a majority of senators and only two-thirds of the senate can remove him.

While this dispute rages, there is still uncertainty over which party has the majority in the senate with both the PDP and APC claiming to have more senators. When the senate reconvenes, these thorny issues are likely to be put to votes, which will no doubt be divisive and rancorous.

One source close to the senate leadership said that arrangements were being perfected to ensure that Senator Akpabio and others who recently defected from the PDP to the APC face a recall process. According to the source, the move against the defectors started just before the senate went on recess, with the refusal of the Senator Saraki to read the letter of defection submitted to him by Senator Akpabio.

No fewer than four senators have dumped the PDP but their defections have not been declared on the floor of the senate. While three of them left the PDP for the APC, one of them left for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (Apga).

For instance, former PDP senators Hope Uzodinma of Imo State and Fatimah Raji-Rasaki of Ekiti State, have been attending APC meetings and events within and outside the senate. Also, Senator Sonny Ogbuoji of Ebonyi State recently introduced himself as the newest catch of the APC when its National Working Committee met with the senate caucus, while Stella Oduah of Anambra State recently defected to Apga.

Senator Uzodinma said: “I am a bona fide, registered, financial card-carrying member of the APC. As you are aware, two months ago, I wrote to the leadership of the senate and the duty to read it is not mine but I am now a member of the APC.”

Members of the APC caucus in the senate have alleged that Senator Saraki withheld their defection letters from the PDP sent to him. They claim that Senator Saraki, who read out the letter in which 13 lawmakers defected from the APC to the PDP and another one to the African Democratic Congress on July 24, refused to read the letters from those who dumped the opposition party for the ruling party.

Senator Saraki, however, denied the allegation, challenging those who claimed to have written to him to declare their defections to publish their letters. So far, Senator Saraki himself is yet to announce his own defection on the floor of the senate.