Senator Bukola Saraki: presidency of controversy

Fifty one out of 59 APC Senators were absent at the election on the floor of the Nigerian Senate, where Senator Bukola Saraki emerged today unanimously as the President of the Nigerian Senate.

The 51 Senators were said to have boycotted the election, meaning that the unanimity forged on the floor of the Senate for Saraki’s presidency was forged by PDP senators.

The PDP late yesterday had instructed its members to vote for Saraki and Yakubu Dogara in the House of Representatives.

It appeared the late effort by President Muhammadu Buhari to forge unity within the APC collapsed. A similar fate greeted the effort by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, when he called the feuding elected members in the two houses for a meeting. The Saraki, Dogara camps boycotted the meeting.

The APC leadership supported Senator Ahmed Lawan as the senate President, with George Akume, from Benue State, his deputy.

In the House of Representatives, the APC leadership is backing Femi Gbajabiamila from Lagos State to emerge as Speaker.

The development in the National Assembly, with the defiance of its elected representatives, will mark the first open discord among the amalgam of tendencies that came together in 2013 to form the APC.