When a man is desperate, he will go any length to achieve his plans. That is what's playing out here.But the initial plans to get Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators-elect and members of the House of Reps-elect to vote massively for certain principal officers during Tuesday’s inauguration of the Eighth National Assembly in Abuja has collapsed.
This is because there is a split among some PDP governors on who to support between Senator Bukola Saraki and the APC preferred candidate, Senator Ahmed Lawan for Senate President.
According to The Nation, it was learnt that at a meeting of PDP Senators-elect in Abuja, 28 agreed to back the Saraki/Ike Ekweremadu ticket; 17 agreed to back Lawan/Akume ticket. That was after Saraki decided to work with PDP in a desperate move to win the race.
Some senators rejected suggestion by Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose that they should vote Saraki.
Lawan had emerged the choice candidate of the APC after a mock election by the party’s senators-elect. But the Saraki camp rejected the straw poll and vowed to contest for the position on the floor.
The APC is the majority party in the Senate, with 59 senators-elect. The PDP has 49 senators.
At a meeting held by the PDP caucus on Sunday night in former Senate President David Mark’s residence in Apo, Abuja, the divided PDP senators-elect and their governors were said to have threatened to draft one of them into the race if the APC failed to agree on a consensus candidate.
A source said: “The surprise of the night was that some of the governors who Goodluck Jonathan laboured to install were those at the vanguard of the Saraki project, a man who practically destroyed PDP.
“Most senators at the meeting viewed supporting Saraki as robbing Peter to pay Paul. They contended that it will be bad politics to reward a man who took up arms against his party, destroyed it and moved to build another one.”
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