Marafa noted that senate rules, as passed in 2011 indicate that an election into any of the principal offices in the red chamber shall be by division whereby senators supporting one candidate will be on one side, as those supporting another candidate will be on the other side, and not by secret ballot when two contestants are vying for any of the positions. He argued that the election that brought Ekweremadu into office was contrary to the provisions of the rules and demanded an explanation from the Senate president on when the rules were amended. Saraki swiftly ruled him out of order, while also citing the senate rules that say if a matter on presiding officer’s election has been decided, there can be no further inquiry into it.

While President Buhari also recently reportedly reiterated that the election of the PDP member as the Deputy Senate President was unacceptable, the fact is that there is pretty little the APC can do to change the present the leadership of the Senate. For one, with a slight majority of just 59 Senators, the APC did not have the two third majority (73 senate seats) needed to impeach Ekweremadu. The APC cannot even be sure that all its members will buy into such plot. It will certainly not be in the interest of the Senate President who has been at odds with the leadership of APC over his defiance of the party to emerge the Senate President to move against members of PDP who he could now relied on as a backbone.

Also, members of PDP in the Senate have vowed that they will resist any attempt to force Ekweremadu out. “The APC senators should stop making such demands, because it is an effort in futility. How do they think that they could ask someone who won an election overwhelmingly among his colleagues to resign in order to satisfy some interests within their party?” queried Abiodun Olujimi a PDP member representing Ekiti-South Senatorial District.

•Olujimi: Ekweremadu can’t be removed

The PDP Senators said the only recourse open to aggrieved APC senators is to go to court or initiate an impeachment move if they wanted to remove the deputy senate president. But those who said the APC should not be too troubled about the emergence of Ekweremadu pointed out that there are similar situations that had been to the benefit of the party in some states of the country.

As pointed out by Segun Adeniyi in his weekly column last week, “in the Benue State House of Assembly where PDP has majority of the members, the APC government in the State, by a sleight of hand, ensured the emergence of Hon. Terkimbi Ikyange (APC member) as Speaker with Hon. James Okefe Ejembi (PDP) as his deputy. The same thing happened in Plateau State where the APC (which won the governorship election) has produced the speaker despite the fact that the PDP has more members in the House of Assembly.

He also pointed out that “the audacity of Saraki and Dogara has helped the president to resolve some inherent geopolitical headaches that were waiting to haunt him. It has thrown up a Christian from the ‘Core North’ as Speaker just as it has produced a Deputy Senate President from the South-east at a time when the APC should be worrying about how not to exclude the zone from the national ring.”

The challenge, according to him is “for the President is to have the sagacity to ‘own’ these advantages while using his party to encircle the leadership of the National Assembly.” Beyond this, Ekweremadu may have become a burden the APC has to carry for the next four years. But the Deputy Senate President will also be carrying a burden of being the face of a government he was not part of, especially when it comes to defending government policies for instance. While he has said he is ready to join hands to work for the success of Buhari administration, how comfortable will he be in the midst of APC Senators, especially when it comes to policies related to the manifestoes of the party? While the easy way out for Ekweremadu would have been to defect to APC, the ruling by the Supreme Court late last year that lawmakers who defected from the platform on which they got elected must vacate their seats is will be a hindrance.

There is also the question of the benefits that Ekweremadu can attract to the Southeast as a Deputy Senate President. While the Deputy Senate President said he accepted to contest for the position so as to ensure that the Southeast has a strong representation and is not marginalized at the federal level, the region’s chapter of APC does not think so.

Osita Okechukwu, spokesman for APC in the zone in a statement titled: “Buhari Will Not Marginalise South-east and South-south,” said the reasons tendered by Ekweremadu for contesting for the position were false because the Buhari administration had plans for the six zones of the country. “For the avoidance of doubt, as of Saturday, June 13, 2015, and to date, when this unimaginative propaganda was reeled out to hapless and anxious crowd by Senator Ekweremadu, President Buhari has not named the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), ministers, advisers, ambassadors, boards etc. On which plank was this propaganda predicated?” the South East chapter of APC queried while arguing that the office of “Deputy Senate President in real-politics is more symbolic than substantial.”

•Osita Okechukwu: Southeast APC spokesman

The Southeast APC further argued in the statement that merely occupying the position of Deputy Senate President will not make South-east and South-south part and parcel of Buhari’s government. Okechukwu also claimed that not much was achieved for the two regions even when Ekweremadu occupied the office under former President Goodluck Jonathan, his party man.

Speaking in the same vein, Senator Ngige likened the position of the Deputy Senate President to that of Deputy Governor, even as he described both positions as a “spare tyre or standby generator.” He, however, agreed that the emergence of the deputy senate president from the PDP in the Southeast will help keep the party alive in the region: “PDP in the Southeast will have oxygen to breathe from because they now have the highest-ranking (Igbo) person in Nigeria.”

•Ngige: Edged out of Senate presidency after losing the 28 March election

Beyond this, the Southeast APC also feared that the emergence of Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President has jeopardized the chances of the region in terms of getting the position of Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF which is considered to be a more influential office.

The speculations after the elections, especially with the Southeast’s failure to elect a Senator or Representatives who could occupy the position of the Senate President or Speaker was that the position of SGF will be zoned to the Southeast as a compensation. Drs. Ogbonaya Onu and Chris Ngige are the leading candidates of the Southeast touted as the potential beneficiaries of the position. With the emergence of Ekweremadu, there have been fears among the APC members in the region that since the Southeast has been settled with the position of the Deputy Senate President, the SGF may be appointed from the South-south.

Thus, the Southeast APC is not only peeved by Ekweremadu’s usurpation of the office of the deputy senate president, but his suggestions during the reception organized for him that with his election, the marginalization of the region has been taken care of. “Accordingly, for the records we appeal that the South-east and South-south, especially we of the APC stock should not be denied any position due to us because of our brother’s unintended headline that we have been settled,” the Southeast APC said in the statement by Okechukwu. “We are therefore at a loss why the distinguished Senator should choose this auspicious moment to play spoiler game, by wittingly or unwittingly throwing spanner in our wheel to clinch the coveted office of SGF. Pundits may grab his unintended headline that we have been settled,” it added.

But Hon. Paul Anikwe, a PDP chieftain in Enugu State and a two time member of Enugu State House of Assembly disagreed. According to him, the Southeast is happy about the emergence of the Deputy Senate President because he will continue to deliver democracy dividend to his senatorial district, Enugu State, and the zone. Anikwe said there’s nothing wrong in Ekweremadu calling on Buhari to carry every part of the country, including the Southsouth, along being a statesman and a Deputy President of the Senate of all Nigerians. “Look at it this way: out of the first seven positions in the land, namely: President, Vice President, Senate President, Deputy President of the Senate, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, the South-east would have been nowhere but for the stunt pulled by Ekweremadu and the PDP Senators and their leaders. The Chief Justice of Nigeria is already from the North, likewise the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court,” said Anikwe.

Whatever be the case, the fact is that Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President in what is supposed to be an APC Congress and an APC government has now joined the ruling party, Dr. Vitus Ozoke, a lawyer and professor of conflict resolution, Salisbury University said while analyzing the position of the legal practitioner has now found himself. According to him, the greater burden on Ekweremadu now is the shared responsibility of working for the realization of the change mantra that was responsible for the victory of APC in the 2015 general elections.

“He now must work for change. If he does not, if the PDP, having joined the leadership of an APC Congress, fails to work for the change that Nigerians voted for, or even worse, impedes change, it will have dug an eternal grave for itself. Like I said, it is a very simple and straightforward theory: Ike Ekweremadu and the PDP have assumed shared responsibility for the new direction,” said Ozoke.

The Deputy Senate President seemed to be thinking along this line when he advised the APC last week to stop playing politics while noting that what Nigerians expect now are policies and programmes that would benefit the majority of Nigerians, irrespective of political affiliations. “We have finished with politics, what is remaining now is governance and this country belongs to all of us and the constituents are not interested in whether you are APC or PDP. What they want is good governance and we must unite as a people to give Nigeria good governance. The issue of bickering and differences does not have any place in the minds of our people. What they want is performance, what they want to see is good governance and we must unite,” Ekweremadu said when he hosted members of the Coalition of Election Observers, who visited him in Abuja.

Without a realistic tactics of booting Ekweremadu out, except he voluntarily throws in the towel, an option which appears very impossible, the APC and President Buhari may have no option, but to work with the Senate and its burden of oxymoronic leadership for now.