PDP intensifies moves to retain Senate presidency

Based on the results of the March 28th National Assembly elections, the APC has 61 senators while the PDP has 48.
With the slight majority of the APC, the PDP needs only seven more senators to produce the simple majority of 55 members to retain the Senate presidency.
Senators in the know of the plot said an alliance is being formed between the PDP and some APC senators who will be given the position of deputy senate president as compensation.
Already, there is a precedence in 2011 when Aminu Waziri Tambuwal defied the PDP zoning arrangement and contested for the speakership and won, our correspondent reports.
Two zones of the North-east and North-central are jostling for the position but sources said the PDP is plotting to give  bloc votes to one of its own on a joint ticket with some APC senators, in anticipation of possible disagreement in the APC bloc.
An APC senator who sought anonymity yesterday expressed fear that the PDP would likely grab the Senate presidency seat if the APC did not put its house in order by ceding either the senate presidency or the speakership to the North-east zone.
The senator also said that for the sake of justice and fair play, the APC leadership should zone the Senate presidency to the North-east that produced the second highest number of votes to the party after the North-west.
He said the North-east region had been devastated as a result of the insurgency and has been the most marginalised in terms of infrastructural facilities, stressing that ceding the seat to it would assuage the zone.