[The Legislative Blog]: PDP loses another senatorial seat in the upper chamber and this time, it hurts

Up until Saturday, the PDP could proudly lay claim to Ondo state with Olusegun Mimiko as governor and Senator Yele Omogunwa as the only PDP representative in the upper House for Ondo South.

The elections came and power changed hands; APC candidate, Rotimi Akeredolu emerged winner and one of the early resultant effects of his win is what we saw at the Senate today. The only senatorial seat held by the PDP in Ondo state was lost today as Senator Yele Omogunwa decamped to the ruling APC in what comes as a very unsurprising move.

This is not the first of such decampments in the favour of the APC. Two months ago, Senator Joshua Dariye representing Kogi Central announced his move in a plenary sitting. That did not quite cause an uproar as today’s has.

The PDP is losing out in many quarters and the party’s loyalists are more thin-skinned about the spate of disappointments. The walk-out drama at plenary earlier today is another proof of this. What is the major bone of contention?

The party has completely lost Ondo state to the APC and all it has left to brag about in the South-West is Ekiti state, where it holds all three senatorial seats in the upper legislative chamber. In Ogun state, Senator Buruji Kashamu of the PDP holds the Ogun East seat. Four seats in all the 18 South-West seats; also now down to 44 members in the House out of all 109.

So we get why PDP senators walked out on plenary when Senate President, Bukola Saraki would not declare Yele Omogunwa’s seat vacant. A vacant seat will amount to another election in that constituency which will most likely be a win for Senator Omogunwa and the APC, so it’s still a potential lose-lose situation for the PDP.

Senator Godswill Akpabio, who led the PDP senators in the walk-out justified the action by saying “it was to protect the sanctity of democracy”. Really though?

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail