PDP Senators adjourn abruptly, threaten to impeach Jonathan

There is serious rumbling in the National Assembly. The Senate abruptly adjourned sitting on Tuesday, 25 minutes after resuming plenary with indications that the senators adjourned in protest.

Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, who moved the motion for the adjournment, had shortly before then announced that all PDP members in the senate would hold an emergency meeting immediately.

Ndoma-Egba urged all members of the caucus to attend the meeting as crucial decisions would be taken. The PDP caucus meeting is filled with angry senators.

Feelers from the meeting indicated that the senators had mandated their leadership to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan and the Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, on their grievance.

There were indications that the sudden adjournment was due to threats by some powerful senators of the PDP to by all means commence impeachment proceeding against Jonathan over the President’s alleged unfair treatment.

A top PDP senator said: “We are down already and we won’t mind to go down together with the President. By the time we start impeachment proceedings against him, he will sit up and do the right thing.” 

Jonathan was said to have angered the senators by the "presidential permission" allegedly granted the PDP governors to choose their preferred candidates into the legislature, both at federal and state levels.

The PDP senators are angry that Jonathan had mortgaged their political future to the governors and the lawmakers had vowed to show the President their relevance and strength.

Some senators who spoke with PUNCH on Tuesday said no activity would take place in the upper chamber again until Jonathan accorded them their due recognition.

The senators spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We have made up our minds to paralyse activities at the senate for now. Our strategy is that we will resume and adjourn everyday without treating any serious issue,” a senator from the South-East geo-political zone, said.

Another senator from the South-South vowed that the only legislative business that would attract their participation for now would be strictly on issues against President Jonathan’s interest.

The senator said, “Every PDP senator is dissatisfied with the attitude of Mr. President who now believes that the state governors are more superior to the senators. We will continue to shun plenary until he (Jonathan) do the right thing.

“We will be in sympathy with the Speaker of the House of Reps [Aminu Tambuwal], and if the special grace which the president extended to the governors to choose their successors was not extended to the senators, we will commence an impeachment proceedings against him.

“I can assure you that we will not sit in the chamber again. We won’t touch the 2015 budget whenever it is sent. We will, however, be willing to participate in reviving anything that we had already suppressed in the past to favour Jonathan.

“As I am talking to you all the PDP senators are on their own. None of us is sure of returning to the senate because the President has given the governors the go-ahead to anoint those who would get the tickets for the National and states Houses of Assembly seats."

A female senator said, “There are a couple of governors who want to come to the senate. They don’t want to come here and discover that the current senators from their states are their bosses."