THE Senate may
witness a change of leadership if the threat by aggrieved senators from the two
main political parties, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All
Progressives Congress, APC, to impeach Senate President David Mark for not
protecting them in the just concluded party primaries is carried out.
If successful,
the plot may see the APC producing the Senate President in addition to the
House of Representatives speakership. This is coming as 168 members of the
House of Representatives have endorsed the plan to impeach President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Some of the
vocal and prominent PDP senators, who had defended the party with every
available means whenever the opposition APC senators raised eye-brow over some
of President Jonathan’s policies were surprised that both the Senate leadership
and the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party could not reciprocate the
gesture. Instead the senators were left at the mercy of state governors.
Consequently,
the aggrieved senators in both the PDP and APC, who lost return tickets at the
various party primaries have decided to move against the Senate leadership for
not protecting them during the primaries.
However, Senate
President Mark has dismissed the alleged plot to unseat him, saying the claimed
plot existed only in the imagination of those parading the rumour.
The alleged plot
to remove Mark came on the heels of the impending plan to commence impeachment
of President Jonathan by some senators, which is expected to be presented before
the Senate on resumption this week.
In what may look
like a change of gear, it was gathered that the aggrieved senators, with some
PDP senators now joining their ranks, have decided to rather kick-start the
removal of the Senate leadership instead, starting with Mark.
A senator, who
was privy to the deal, yesterday evening said: “The plan has
changed. We never expected the party to treat us this way. We stood by the
party when there was turbulence occasioned by the emergence of the new PDP.
“There was a
plot then to impeach the same leadership but we stepped in and stopped it with
our sheer number. In fact, we used our personal contacts to talk to the
organisers and they backed down. We prevailed on them not to rock the boat more
so as the Seventh Senate had just a few months to go.
“We thought the
party would take note of what we did and also note our loyalty to the party and
reward us. Rather, we were not even protected in these primaries. Can you
imagine the party leaving us at the mercy of state governors?”
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