Mark chases new senators for votes

 By EMMANUEL AZIKEN, POLITICAL EDITOR

ABUJA-The bid by the North-East Senate caucus to grap the Senate Presidency from the North-Central zone yesterday suffered a major setback after the ranking senator from the zone dumped the prospective bid by Senator-elect Danjuma Goje for the incumbent, Senator David Mark.

The bounce to Mark’s bid for the office of Senate President came as the cell group raised by the Mark campaign yesterday intensified its chase for support from new Senators. 

An estimated 82 new Senators are expected to join the ranks of the estimated 27 serving Senators who won re-election into the Senate last April.

*David Mark

Also yesterday, the Senators-Elect Forum led by Rep Ita Enang, from Akwa Ibom State, yesterday, affirmed that the body would abide by the present zoning policy of PDP for the positions of Senate President and Deputy Senate President and also only support ranking Senators for the two principal positions in the Senate.

The forum, which was supposed to meet in Abuja tomorrow to “forward-look” the next Senate in the words of Enang, has now deferred the meeting till Saturday.

Tomorrow’s meeting was disrupted by the ongoing issuance of certificates of return to the Senators-Elect.

The foremost opposition to the unprecedented ambition of Senator Mark for a second term in office as Senate President has come from the Northeast geo-political zone which is canvassing the rezoning of the office by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the Northeast.

Meanwhile, the cell group said to be canvassing support for Mark is said to be reaching out to new Senators-elect with Senator Mark having one- on-one meetings with a number of them who have surfaced Abuja for networking.

A number of them are said to be networking for the benefit of positioning themselves in strategic Senate committees.

Though no candidate from the Northeast has come out for the office, the outgoing Governor of Gombe State, Alhaji Danjuma Goje, is believed to be the leading contender from the geopolitical zone.

 Goje was last April elected to represent the Gombe Central senatorial zone.