Meanwhile, Senators-elect in the Unity Forum yesterday said there would be no going back on the Ahmed Lawan/George Akume Senate and Deputy Senate President Ticket.

The forum also directed their Like Mind counterparts desirous of names and signatures of supporters of the Lawan/Akume ticket to approach the APC national secretariat for the list.

The Unity Forum in a statement issued through the media office of Lawan/Akume for Senate President, said their resolution in support of Senators Lawan and Akume was in a letter sent to the party with their names and signatures attached, “thus anyone desirous of the list and signatures is free to approach our party.”

The statement was in reaction from the challenge by members of the “Like Minds” that the “Unity Forum” should disclose the identity of all its members.

The statement clarified that five senators out of the 40 members of the Unity Forum were unavoidably absent in Abuja to sign the letter last Wednesday, leaving the 35 quoted in the media, emphasising that the party remains the main body that should be in the know of details of Senators-elect that had signed on to the Lawan/Akume ticket and that the party has the full list.

“Election into the principal offices of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should not be seen in the light of certain types of election characterised by pettiness. We are talking of the upper chamber of the National Assembly,” the statement added.

The forum expressed disappointment that their counterparts rooting for Senator Bukola Saraki were in the name of campaign for the exalted office of the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, taking steps that were not in line with parliamentary practices, “and one of them is the call for display of names and signatures on the pages of newspapers.”

“We are advocates of openness and transparency in the electoral process to produce the leaders of the Senate as done in all parliaments in the world and the open voting system enshrined in the Senate Standing Orders but that should be carried out in line with the parliamentary standards and not on the pages of newspaper.

“After all, during the voting to elect the Senate President, each senator shall vote in the open so that the electorate back home will know whom each senator-elect voted for. We should not forget that the senate is the highest law making chamber in our political system and so, anything to do with it should be matured and of high degree of decorum,” the statement added.