allegedly plotting a sensational
return to the plum office regardless
of the defeat of his party, PDP, in
the recent elections.
Although, the PDP won only 45
seats in the elections as against the
64 by the All Progressives Congress
(APC), Mark believes he stands a
good chance of snatching the
position from the APC.
His calculation, according to
sources in his camp, is that the APC
will zone the Senate Presidency to
the North Central from where he
hails.
He will subsequently penetrate and
divide the APC senators, and then
win to his side some of them who
will vote for him along with the 45
PDP senators.
The plan, The Nation gathered, is
Chief Mark's contribution to the
effort to rebuild the PDP ahead of
the 2019 elections.
He is said to have the support of
PDP leaders who believe that he is
the only one, for now, who stands a
relatively bright chance of standing
up to the APC and stop the PDP
from losing out completely to the
APC.
Sources close to his camp said he
may have found an accomplice in
an APC senator who is a former
North West governor.
The former governor is expected to
work on his fellow APC senators to
back Mark.
A massive war chest of N10billion
is allegedly being readied for the
battle for the Senate Presidency,
sources said.
Mark who has been in the saddle
since 2007 is one of the few PDP
members to win in the last
senatorial election in the North.
Some PDP members do not want
him to return to the Senate as
minority leader or an ordinary
member having been Senate
President since 2007.
A party source said: "Our leaders
are thinking of how to manage
Mark's situation because we do not
want him to play a second fiddle.
He was elected on March 28 based
on our previous equation that we
would still retain power.
"Our leaders are calling for a new
international role for Mark who
has become a statesman in view of
the manner in which he had used
wisdom to save this nation at its
crisis time. Some are also saying
that Mark should play a strategic
role in the reformation of PDP
ahead of 2019 elections.
"Although the ultimate decision
belongs to the Senate President
because has the mandate of his
people, he is a party man." But
Mark has a different idea.
Reacting recently to the gale of
defections from his party to the
APC in the aftermath of the
Presidential polls, Mark vowed to
be the last man standing who
would help in positioning the party
for future elections.
"I have no reasons whatsoever to
leave PDP, no reasons. I have risen
to where I am on the platform of
PDP. PDP has a manifesto and I
believe in it," he said during a
mass held at St. Mulumba Catholic
Chaplaincy, Apo, Abuja, to mark his
67th birthday anniversary.
He added: "Those who are leaving
PDP now are fair weather friends
of PDP. So they have gone (and)
they have no problem.
When PDP bounces back in a few
years in the next couple of elections
or next election they will come back
again to PDP. So they will move.
Those ones are not really the issues.
"So, the point I want to make is
that I remain in PDP and I will try
to restructure PDP, bring it back
again. This is democracy, there will
be a winner and there will be a
loser and the loser must accept it
and the winner must accept it. It is
not anything new for us.
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