Deputy Senate President Seat: Okorocha, Ekweremadu in fight to finish

The battle line is now drawn between Governor Rochas Okorocha and Ike Ekweremadu over Deputy Senate President Seat.

The Imo state governor has already asked the embattled Deputy Senate President to prepare to vacate the office. He said there is now an All Progressives Congress (APC) senator in the waiting from South East, who is coming to occupy the position.

But Ekweremadu, replying the governor, said he is only disillusioned and should better forget his wild imagination of unseating him as the deputy Senate president.

Okorocha took his position after an APC senatorial candidate, Benjamin Uwajumogu, emerged winner of the rerun election for Okigwe senatorial seat in Imo state.

He had said during a victory party for members of APC in Imo state to celebrate the outcome of the re-run election that “The position of Senator Ike Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President is at the moment under heavy threat because in no distant time, the APC senator in waiting from Imo state, Benjamin Uwajumogu, will take over the seat on the ground that it is an aberration that a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senator from the South-East, is deputy to an APC Senate president because, before now, APC could not produce a senator from the South-East zone.”

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Replying Okorocha, the office of the Deputy President of the Senate in a statement issued by the Special Adviser Media, said though it would have been better to “allow the governor to continue to wallow in his delusions and wild claims, but, considering the fact that this is the second consecutive statement by the governor in one week wherein he attempted to impugn the integrity and democratic credentials of the office and person of the deputy president of the Senate, we are being compelled to set the record straight.”

Recall there had been insinuations that APC had wanted to zone the position of the Senate President to South East, but because there was no APC senator from the zone, the position had to be given to North Central. And while Senator Bukola Saraki was not the choice of the leadership of APC for the position of Senate president, he emerged after an alleged agreement with PDP senators to allow them produce his deputy.

This arrangement which some Nigerians tagged unholy alliance, resulted in Ekweremadu becoming the Senate deputy president, even as the duo are now fighting the battle of their lives over forgery case which many believe is a result of their alleged usurpation of power.

Many APC members have continued to avow their anger against Ekweremadu, insisting he must vacate his position as Deputy Senate President; hence Okorocha’s is campaign to unseat him.

By Ebere Ndukwu

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