The gale of defection hitting the ruling Peoples Democratic Party may have been put on hold till January as the Senate President, David Mark, successfully prevailed on over ten senators who had perfected their plots to defect to the All Progressives Congress at the last day of the Senate’s sitting.

Among the senators who were to defect are Hassan Barata and Jibrilla Bindo from Adamawa State, Magnus Abe and Wilson Ake from Rivers State, Abubakar Bukola Saraki and Mohammed Shaaba Lafiagi from Kwara State, Mohammed Ali Ndume and Ahmed Zannah from Borno State, Abdullahi Adamu from Nasarawa State and Mohammed Danjuma Goje from Gombe State.

Saturday Mirror investigations revealed that the Senate President had in several meetings with the senators advised them not to rush over the action as was done in the lower chamber. He said rather, they should be guided by the constitution which made the consequences of the action clear.

One of the senators had confided with our reporter that the last day session of the Senate would be the last day for them as PDP members as they had concluded to move en-masse to the APC.

The senator said, however, “this situation changed after the Senate President shortly before the plenary, had a close door with us and the outcome of the meeting foreclosed our plan as we had an understanding with the Senate President. He insisted that we should take the holiday period to meditate on the plans.

There was no need to go ahead with the action but nothing suggests that the issue is buried because we are certainly going to revisit it as soon as we reconvene in January.”

Section 68. (1) (g) of the Nigerian Constitution states that A senator or Members of the Representatives will cease to be a member ‘being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected; Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored’.

A bulk of the senators who are seeking to defect are members of the same family with the five governors of Rivers, Sokoto, Kwara, Adamawa and Kano who themselves defected to the APC.

The rest are lawmakers who have fallen out with their state governors and are likely going to be refused another shot in the coming general election in 2015.

Meanwhile, Senator Mark is under intense pressure from both the presidency and the PDP headquarters to ensure that the senators remain in the party even if it takes offering them an automatic ticket in 2015.

A source available to Saturday Mirror insists that should the senators be allowed to move, the leadership of the National Assembly will be precariously under the opposition and the aftermath will be disastrous as the PDP might lose the majority and capacity to be returned in the ruling radar.

Senator Mark who is seen in many quarters as a strong ally and supporter of the president has since retired to his Oturkpo home town which has been turned to a political Mecca by politicians from both divide seeking support.