PALAVA IN THE SENATE?

Barring any last minute change of mind, a major upset will occur in the Senate, Sunday Sun can authoritatively report.This was revealed to Sunday Sun by a reliable Senator from the Northwest, who said that 22 All Progressives Congress (APC) senators have perfected plan to dump the ruling party by decamping to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), thereby giving the major opposition party the majority in the Red Chamber.

According to the source, these APC senators have decided to join force with their colleagues who are loyal to Senator Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari who contested the Senate President position, but lost to Senator Godswill Akpabio.

The source added that already, the 22 senators have held series of meetings in Abuja and London, where they affirmed their resolve to decamp to the PDP. Out of the 109 legislators in the upper legislative chamber, the APC currently has 59 senators; PDP, 36; LP, 8; SDP, 2; NNPP, 2; YPP, 1; and APGA, 1. Therefore, if the 22 APC senators make good their threat, they will swell the number of the PDP to 58 while reducing that of APC to 37, thereby throwing up the PDP as the majority party in the Senate.To actualize their plan, Sunday Sun gathered that the PDP senators have agreed to cede the Senate President position currently held by Senator Akpabio to one of the 22 senators and Yari’s allies decamping to the party, as well as the Deputy Senate President post.

On the part of the PDP senators, the party would take the Majority Leader, Chief Whip, and Deputy Chief Whip, the source said, adding that the Yari group has pledged to work harmoniously with them.It would be recalled that Senator Akpabio used 17 votes to defeat Senator Yari during the 10th Senate President election held on June 13, with Akpabio scoring 63 votes and Yari, 46.

Also another senator from the Northwest told our reporter that a group of senators have already concluded plans to challenge the outcome of the election in court on grounds that the ballot papers used in the election that was supposed to be secret balloting were manipulated and compromised.It was also gathered that the 22 senators who come from across the six-geopolitical zones and those planning to go to court from across party lines are just waiting to see how the sharing of principal offices, committees chairmanship positions in the Senate and some of their court cases in the states would go before carrying out their plans.It was also gathered that the senators who are not in the Senator Akpabio camp have been left out in the ongoing committee selections in the Senate, which has reinforced their resolve to support the PDP in taking over the leadership of the upper chamber.