Unveiling the face of 9th Senate

With about 98 percent of results of the National Assembly election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) already announced and numbers of Senators- elect known, the face of the coming 9th Senate has already been unveiled. Taiye Odewale writes.

Awaiting Plateau south, Imo north

Though out of the 109 senatorial seats across the country, two, namely Plateau South and Imo North are yet to be announced as regards winners and losers from the National Assembly election conducted penultimate Saturday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but the 107 seats already declared, has shown how the face cum membership configuration of the 9th Senate will be.

APC’s majority of 65

Presently out of the 107 results declared, senators elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are 65 while those elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are 41, in addition to the only one seat won by candidate of the Young Peoples Party (YPP) in Anambra South.

Unlike in the now fizzling out 8th Senate which had 60 APC senators- elect and 49 PDP senators at inauguration in June 2015, the APC had made a progression of about five senators more into the 9th Senate while PDP as it is presently, may be going into the 9th Senate with retrogression in membership of about eight.

66 new faces, 43 returnees

Strikingly out of the 109 senators billed for the 9th Senate, 66 will be new faces while 43 are returnees, indicating similar pattern of high turnover known with the National Assembly and in particular, the Senate since 2003.

The spread of the 43 returnees on state by state analysis are: Two from Lagos, one from Ondo, one from Oyo, two from Abia, two from Ebonyi, two from Enugu and one from Anambra.

Others are one from Akwa Ibom, three from Delta, three from Edo, two from Cross River, two from Kano, one from Jigawa, one from Kaduna, one from Zamfara, three from Kebbi, two from Sokoto, one from Katsina and two from Borno.

Also returning are three senators from Taraba, one from Yobe, one from Bauchi, one from Gombe, one from Kogi, one from Nasarawa, one from Niger and Senator Tanimu Aduda from FCT.

Apart from Delta, Edo, Kebbi, Taraba and FCT where all the serving senators returned, the 66 new faces for the 9th Senate, cuts across all the remaining 32 states on the platform of both the APC and the PDP.

Their breakdowns are as follow: One from Lagos, two from Ondo, three from Ogun, two from Oyo, three from Osun and three from Ekiti.

Freshers from the South-east and South- south are , one from Abia, one from Ebonyi, one from Enugu, two from Anambra, two from Imo, three from Rivers, two from Akwa Ibom, three from Bayelsa and one from Cross Rivers.

From the North-west and North-east are, one from Kano, two from Jigawa, two from Kaduna, two from Zamfara, one from Sokoto, two from Katsina, one from Borno, two from Yobe, three from Adamawa, two from Bauchi and two from Gombe.

Freshers from North-central are three from Kwara, two from Kogi, two from Nasarawa, three from Plateau, three from Benue and two from Niger.

11 ranking senators

High ranking among the 43 returnees are the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, the Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan, Deputy Leader, Bala Ibn Na’Allah, Ali Ndume , James Manager, Abdullahi Adamu, Kabiru Gaya, Dino Melaye, Danjuma Goje, Tanimu Philip Aduda, Emmanuel Bwacha etc.

Highly notable among the freshers are: Former governor of Abia state, Orji Uzor Kalu, his counterpart from Benue state, Gabriel Suswam, Chimaroke Nnamani, Governor Abdulaziz Yari from Zamfara state, Ibikunle Amosun from Ogun state, Rochas  Okorocha from Imo  state and Tanko Al Makura from Nasarawa State.

Others are former Senate Leader, Teslim Folarin from Oyo Central, Uche Ekwunife from Anambra Central, George Thompson Sekibo from Rivers East, and Ibrahim Shekarau from Kano Central etc.

North-east dominate ranking returnees

In terms of power configuration, while high ranking APC senators like Ahmed Lawan (Yobe North), Ali Ndume (Borno South), Danjuma Goje (Gombe Central) and Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa West), are already in the race for the presidency of the 9th Senate, their counterparts from the South East like Senator Orji Uzor (Abia North) and Benjamin Uwajumogu (Imo North) if he eventually wins from the re-run election this Saturday, are already positioning themselves for the number two presiding job of Deputy Senate President.

PDP may again decide next senate president

By legislative experience and party loyalty, Ahmed Lawan may eventually be the choice of APC and perhaps, the presidency for the number one position in the 9th Senate but peculiar factors cum high wire politics among the 109 senators may rob him of the position.

A pointer to that direction is the serious interest Ali Ndume and Danjuma Goje also have in the race, which may bring about divisions among the 65 APC senators for exploitation by the 41 PDP senators as it was, in 2015 in the build up to the inauguration of the 8th Senate.

Though the 41 PDP senators already confirmed elected for the 9th Senate outside the Plateau South and Imo North seats yet to be declared by INEC, have not met to take position on who to support for the number one seat in the Senate but feelers from their camp indicate that both Lawan and Ndume, may not get their backing.

One of them, who is a returnee senator and very close to the outgoing senate president, Bukola Saraki, confided in Blueprint that what is sure from them is block votes for whoever they will settle for at the end of the day.

According to the senator: “what happened in 2015 at the inauguration of the 8th Senate will surely repeat itself at the inauguration of the 9th Senate because senators elected on the platform of PDP will use their number in block to vote a senate president that will carry them along and respect the doctrine of separation of powers especially between the executive and the legislature and not a rubber stamp senate president amenable to the presidency.

“For now, no particular person yet but we are strategically watching the dancing steps of the interested persons within the APC camp for the required profiling, endorsement or rejection in June with our block votes”.

Whoever emerges at the end of the day in June at the inauguration of the 9th Senate, the face, colour and power configuration, would surely be different from the outgoing 8th Senate which brought bi-partisan leadership into the history of Senate in Nigeria.

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