In what may be a last ditch attempt to persuade 11 former Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, senators, who defected to the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, last week, to rethink their action and return to the ruling party, Senate President David Mark will later today meet with the affected lawmakers.
The senators, led by former Kwara governor, Bukola Saraki, had written to Mark informing the senate of their decision to dump the PDP for APC but the letter was not read on the floor of the upper chambers, a move seen by most political analysts as a ploy by the senate president to buy more time to convince his colleagues on the need to remain in PDP.
A mild drama played out last week when the affected senators insisted that their letter must be read but the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the session, said he could not do so as the letter was not in his possession.
Some of the senators, who have remained adamant, yesterday, expressed their preparedness to attend the meeting with Mark, adding that they were too old to be influenced by anybody.
One of the senators, Ali Ndume, said he, as a person, has great respect for Senator Mark, who he described as a good leader and that he was ready to honour invitations from him (Mark) any time because of his excellent leadership traits, adding, “Of course we are still together as senators, so, I think he is doing what he is supposed to do on his part. What he is doing is normal. I think it is good for him as a leader and not to say okay, you are going, bye”.
On whether they would cave in to pressure from the senate president to rescind their decision, Ndume said: “We cannot predict what he is going to do and I honestly, cannot predict what is going to happen till tomorrow (today).
“Naturally if the Senate President wants to see me, I cannot ask why before going to see him. It may not necessarily turn out to be what he wants, but as a leader, he has done what he should do”.
Another senator also said that not minding the respect they have for Mark, “we are adults that can take decisions we know are good for us”.
Meanwhile, it has been learnt that top on the agenda for discussion in the meeting between Mark and the defecting senators are his reasons for not reading their letter during the last plenary; why they should drop their defection plan as well as the pending court case instituted by the national leadership of PDP to stop them from defecting, among others.
PDP or APC, all we know is that 2015 is all about the candidate credibility and accessibilty. It is going to be peoples choice not party choice. So any politician is legally free to choose his comfortable party to belong but the truth is not in whose party you belong.Mark is doing the right thing as a leader of the upper house to hear from his colleagues the reason behind their defection.