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Former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, on Thursday said the emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the Deputy Senate President is a blessing to the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
He states this in Abuja shortly after a meeting with the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party.
According to Akpabio, an opposition member as Deputy President of the Senate would ensure that issues before the legislature were examined in a more holistic and all-encompassing bipartisan approach.
This bipartisanship, he said, would place the 8th Senate above the previous ones in terms of performance and quality of legislation.
The ex-governor said, “I think the development is very good for democracy because Ekweremadu was freely elected by senators.
“If you recall, he scored about 54 votes and the total number of PDP members in the senate are about 49. This means he was accepted across party lines.
“It is also possible that some of the senators of PDP did not vote for him and that we probably have more senators of the APC voting for him than the PDP.
“But the major thing is that he was voted for across party lines. That’s the way the Senate wanted it. They want an experienced person to work with the Senate President and they want a very stable Senate. They want a Senate that will be productive, a Senate that will have serious continuity.
“And I think it is good for politics and is also good for President Buhari, that at the end of the day, we have a Deputy Senate President who has been there before, who is not from the APC so that we can look at things from a holistic point of view, from a national perspective and not always through party binoculars.
“So, for me, I believe that the 8th Senate will achieve far more than the previous sessions did because of the fact that issues are going to be looked at not from a partisan point of view but in a bipartisan way.
“I am very proud of the decision by the Senate. I stand by the Deputy Senate President and the Senate President and the Senate for what they have done.”
