APC wins majority seats in Senate

The ruling All Progressives Congress has won 62 out of 109 seats in the Senate. The People’s Democratic Party has 37 seats and the Young Progressives Party secured one.

Although the Senate is made up of 109 seats, the Independent National Electoral Commission has only announced 100 winners as the commission had ordered a rerun in some states

Reruns were held on March 9 in Abia South, Imo West and North, Kogi East, Ondo South, Plateau South, Rivers East, Rivers West, while Bauchi South Senator will be determined by a court.

Winners of those reruns are yet to be included in the list.

Of the 100 senatorial seats declared so far, six are to be occupied by women.

President Muhammadu Buhari said he was happy over the majority of the APC in the Senate.

Buhari said he was looking forward to a mutual and effective working relationship with the ninth National Assembly toward improving the budgetary process and restoring the country to the January-December fiscal cycle.

He recounted how the delay in the passage of budgets hindered timely execution of projects across the country. The general election budget approval was also delayed.

The presidency alleged that the National Assembly planned to sabotage the 2019 poll by deliberately withholding approval for funding as required by the electoral commission for the elections.

Senate chief Bukola Saraki dismissed the allegations and accused the presidency of not properly explaining issues regarding the budget before sending it for approval.

He said the legislature would not accept being treated as the “appendage of the executive.”

“No genuine leader of the legislature will be comfortable that the presidency will simply write a terse letter to the national assembly on key issues which the federal legislature is expected to later deliberate upon and give its approval,” he said.

“The Buhari administration consistently treats the legislature with contempt and acts as if the lawmaking body should be an appendage of the executive. To me, this is unacceptable.”