Operation sweep off senators as 76 senators fail to make 8th National Assembly, see the them

As the 8th senate is expected to start by June, 76 serving senators in the 7th assembly which is about

seventy percent have lost their bid to return to the red chamber for legislative deliberations while 33 members making up thirty percent were re-elected.

It will be recalled that the Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba had before the general elections lamented that the senate had lost 107 Senators which he said was a set back to the smooth and easy legislative operations.

Some of the serving senators will not join their colleagues in the 8th Senate because they were affected by the zoning formula in their various states, some indicated interest in the governorship position in their various states, while others were stopped by their state governors who were handed the structures of the party in the states.

About five senators have the governorship ticket to stand for the April 11 election in the two major political parties such as Senator Simeon Ajibola who is contesting on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Kwara State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, PDP, Delta State and Prof. Ben Ayade, PDP, Cross River.

Others are Senator Gyang Pwajok, for Plateau, PDP, Senator Aisha Alhassan, All Progressives Congress, APC, Taraba, who is the only female senator that was successful in the party primaries to pick the governorship ticket and Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, APC, Kebbi State.

In what has been described as tsunami, only 33 out of the 109 senators were lucky to have survived the March 28 National Assembly election.

A zone by zone investigations showed that the worst hit in the exodus of senators was the South-South where only three senators, James Manager from Delta, Emmanuel Paulker from Bayelsa and Thompson Sekibo from Rivers that were lucky at the polls.

Also in the South West, five out of the 18 senators from the zone are returning to the senate. The senators are Gbenga Ashafa and Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos); Robert Boroffice (Ondo); and Babajide Omoworare and Olusola Adeyeye (Osun).

The South East seems to have the highest number of Senators from the South that will be making the 8th Assembly with six out of 15 Senators from the Zone. The Senators are Eyinnaya Abaribe (Abia);  Andy Uba (Anambra); Soni Ogbuoji (Ebonyi ); Ike Ekweremadu and Gilbert Nnaji ( Enugu);  and Hope Uzodinma (Imo ).

In the North Central,  seven Senators like Bukola Saraki and Shaaba Lafiaji ( Kwara); David Mark, George Akume and Barnabas Gemade (Benue);  Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa) and Joshua Dariye (Plateau) were lucky to make it.

The North East has the overall number of returning Senators. The returning members are, Senators Ahmed Zannah (Borno);  Danjuma Goje and Joshua Lidani (Gombe); Emmanuel Bwacha (Taraba );  Bukhar Ibrahim and Ahmad Lawan (Yobe); and Kabiru Marafa and Ahmad Sani (Zamfara) were returned by their constituents.

North West is like the South-South with three Senators, Senators Kabiru Gaya ( Kano); and Ibrahim Abu (Katsina) making the returning list.

Investigations revealed that 60 of the incoming senators are from the APC, while 49 are for the Peoples Democratic Party members.