EXCLUSIVE: PDP May Support Northern Aspirant For Senate Presidency, Rejects Akpabio, Umahi

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has decided that its former members who recently decamped to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, seeking to be Senate president in the next Senate would not be supported by senators elected under its platform, THE WHISTLER has gathered.

An elected senator confided in this newspaper on Friday that the party leadership has discussed the matter and would pass the message to the senators-elect.

Our source said the party has learnt some lessons from the electoral defeats it suffered in the 2023 general elections and would henceforth ensure that all its elected senators adhere strictly to directives on
who to vote for in June when the 10th National Assembly is convened by the president.

The Senator-elect told THE WHISTLER  on Friday that the party has decided to support any member from the North provided he had been a member of the PDP in the past.

He said the party is also looking at likely cornering the position of deputy senate president, similar to what transpired in 2015.

In 2015, protracted negotiations stalled the APC from anointing a candidate and allowed a deal made by Bukola Saraki with the PDP to create a mixed senate leadership.

While Saraki emerged as Senate President from the APC, Ike Ekweremadu emerged as his deputy from the PDP.

By the Standing Order of the Senate, to emerge a Senate president, an aspirant must score a simple majority of the senators present.

Saraki and the PDP hurriedly organised the election in the absence of most elected senators on the platform of the APC, who were still negotiating the principal positions at the time.

The senator-elect told THE WHISTLER that the PDP is also looking at the scenario and would seize the chance if it presents itself again.

The senate has 109 members but only 108 seats have been declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

Out of this the APC has 57 senator-elects, PDP with 29; Labour Party with six; New Nigerian Peoples Party, NNPP, with one; Social Democratic Party, SDP, also with two; the All Progressives Grand Alliance. APGA, and Young Peoples Party, YPP, won one each, making it the most diverse in Nigeria’s history.

The INEC had annulled the election of Ibrahim Shekarau who won on the platform of the NNPP in Kano following his defection to the PDP.

As the race to the position of the Senate president gathers momentum, following declaration of intent by some senator-elects, the source , a senator-elect from the south,  revealed that the party has shut its
doors on the Chief Whip of the Senate, Orji Kalu (APC-North ) and outgoing governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi (APC-Ebonyi South).

Kalu was twice governor of Abia State and has been reelected for a third term into the Senate while Umahi is going into the Senate for the first term.

Both are from the Southeast which has called for the position to be zoned to it for the sake of equity, inclusiveness and sense of belonging.

Only former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio (APC-Akwa Ibom Northwest), who served as Senate Minority Leader on the platform of the PDP, has indicated his interest for the position from
the South south.

Akpabio too has been listed as one of those who would not be supported by the PDP.

The three top members of the APC, aspiring to the Senate Presidency have had fierce running battles with the PDP and have been accused of playing a part in the electoral misfortune of the party.

While some agitators from the Northcentral are pressuring the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, to resign to enable the party zone the position to the Northcentral, Senator Barau Jibrin (APC-Kano
North) is the only northerner who has openly indicated his interest to contest the position.

Although he was in the PDP in 1999 and was elected into the House of Representatives under the party, and also served under the government of the PDP in Kano State, he remains the likely beneficiary of the move by the PDP if the move by the party is anything to go by.

The senator-elect who’s also a serving senator explained that, “Jibrin is competent, why not? We can support him if the party decides that way.

“But one thing the party has made very clear to us is that our top members who abused us, derided us, worked against us and cost us electoral victories would not be supported.

“We have the numbers because we have three people from the South contesting. Unless they agree and settle for one aspirant, we have the number to decide who becomes the Senate president.

“You know why? Because we would vote en bloc. We won’t vote against the wishes of the party but based on what the party decides.

“If it’s Jibrin, who I know very well, so be it. He can be the Senate president, simple.”

The 10th Senate would be convened in June through a letter despatched to the Clerk of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Calls and text messages sent to the spokesman of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, were not answered as at the time of going to press.