The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has replaced Senator Clifford Odia (Edo Central) with Senator Sahabi Yau (Zamfara North) as Senate Deputy Minority Whip.
Odia is a second term senator who was first elected in 2015, while Yau was first a member of the seventh Senate but lost re-election in 2015.
Yau made it back to the ninth Senate by virtue of the recent Supreme Court judgment that sacked all elected officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara and replaced them with their PDP counterparts.
A top party source said the decision to replace Odia with Yau was informed by the need to reflect federal character and spread in the choice of Minority positions in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Odia is presently prevailed upon to accept the decision in good faith.
The party has based its decision on the fact that the South South, where Odia hails from, already had two of the eight minority positions in the National Assembly while the North West, where Yau comes from, had none.
For instance, Kingsley Chinda (Obio/Akpor Federal Constituency), Rivers State, has been picked as Minority Leader in the House of Representatives. Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) is the party’s choice as Senate Minority Leader, while Emmanuel Bwacha (Taraba South) is Deputy Minority Leader.
Senator Philip Aduda, who represents the Federal Capital Territory is Minority Whip.
The party has mandated former Senate President Bukola Saraki to lead a peace delegation to Edo State to pacify leaders and stakeholders in Odia’s senatorial district over the rejig.
The leaders would be communicating the party’s decisions on the appointment of the Minority principal officers to the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, who will announce the choices on the floor of the chambers.