The Deputy Senate President, Ike
Ekweremadu, has said he will not resign from the office despite the
insistence of the All Progressives Congress that he should be removed.
Ekweremadu who spoke through his media
aide,
Mr. Ismail Omipidan, told our correspondent on Sunday that he had
no reason to step aside as the Deputy Senate President as he was duly
elected into the office.
He recalled that several public office-holders had defected from the PDP to the APC without any noise from the latter.
He added that the APC had produced
either the Speaker or Deputy Speaker in some states’ Houses of Assembly
where the party was in the minority.
Ekweremadu recalled that the PDP had
corrected the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun,
when he recently faulted his occupation of the office.
He said, “The call for Ekweremadu’s
resignation also exposes the hypocrisy of some APC stalwarts. You will
recall that when Tambuwal defected (from the PDP) to the APC, all the
notable leaders of the party, including Lai Mohammed who was the
National Publicity Secretary of the APC, stated clearly that there was
nowhere in the constitution where it was stated that the Speaker (of the
House of Representatives) must be produced by the majority party; that
was their argument. (The current Majority Leader of the House) Femi
Gbajabiamila also said so.
“What has now changed? The constitution
has not been rewritten; it is the same constitution. And it is very
clear that ‘the senators shall elect the Senate President and the Deputy
Senate President from amongst themselves.’”
Omipidan also recalled that under the
first tenure of Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, the ruling APC
produced the speaker of the House of Assembly while an opposition party
produced the deputy speaker. He also recalled that an opposition APC had
produced either speakers or deputy speakers of Benue and Plateau
states’ Houses of Assembly.
“Where you don’t have a clear majority,
there has to be some alliances to make the legislative work go smoothly.
These things happened in the states but they never raised eyebrows
then,” he added.
One of the aides of the Senate
President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, who spoke to our correspondent on
condition of anonymity, stated that the APC currently lacked the
popularity in the Senate to unseat Ekweremadu.
The source noted that removing
Ekweremadu would be easier for the APC if all its members were on the
same page, unlike their PDP counterparts who were united.
According to the source, it is a game of numbers.
“Today, the APC has a divided house
while the PDP senators – over 40 of them – are all together, working
together. It is a more complex issue,” the source said.
The source added that “it takes a simple
majority to elect the senate president and the deputy senate president
but it will take two-thirds of the senators to remove any of them, which
the APC currently lacks.”
Confirming this, Senator Shehu Sani
(APC, Kaduna-Central), told our correspondent on Sunday that it would be
difficult for the APC to effect Ekweremadu’s removal when its senators
had been factionalised.
He said, “The issue of removal of
Ekweremadu; it is not impossible but it has a lot of consequences. You
cannot achieve the removal of Ekweremadu until there is a united APC
senators.
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