For now, the more you look at issues at the Nigerian Senate, the less you understand them. This situation, perhaps, explains the events unfolding at the Senate since the emergence of the new leadership.

It all started in June, when the inauguration of the lawmakers was trailed by a petition of alleged forgery of Standing Rules. In the middle of the forgery drama were some key figures in the Red Chamber.

Senator Suleiman Othman Hunkuyi was the one who wrote a petition to the Inspector-General of Police Solomon Arase, accusing Ike Ekweremadu, the deputy president of the Senate and the Clerk of the National Assembly, Salisu Maikasuwa, of forging the Senate Standing Orders. Acting on the petition, the police invited Ekweremadu, Maikasuwa and others for interviewing but the outcome of the police investigation has not been made public months after. However, it was widely reported in online media that the police investigation has confirmed the case of forgery by the suspects.

Two national dailies (not Daily Trust) also reported the outcome of the police investigation, saying the Senate Standing Orders was doctored. Apparently not satisfied, Hunkuyi, who was earlier alone in the fight against the forgery case, was joined by four others: Senators Abu Ibrahim, Kabiru Marafa, Ajayi Borofice and Olugbenga Ashafa, who instituted a legal action against the leadership of the Senate.

Specifically, the five senators asked the Abuja Federal High Court to remove the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and his deputy, Ekweremadu, for allegedly using a forged document to get to their present positions.

The appellants, who are mainly of the 'Unity Forum', the camp that supported Senator Ahamad Lawan (APC, Yobe North) for the Senate presidency, are insisting that the Senate Standing Order 2015 was forged and the anomaly must be addressed. On their part, the Saraki camp members, popularly known as the 'Like Minds,' have been keeping mum on the issue. Out of the blues, the brouhaha took a new twist on Tuesday, September 2, when the spokesman of the Saraki's camp, Senator Dino Melaye, who happens to be the chairman of the Senate adhoc committee on publicity, announced the withdrawal of the forgery suit.

In a statement headlined: "Senate hails withdrawal of suit on forgery", Melaye said Justice Ademola Adeniyi of the Federal High Court, Abuja, had struck out the case and terminated further hearing on the matter after the plaintiffs who are members of the Senate Unity Forum withdrew their suit. He commended members of both the Unity Forum and the Like Minds for their maturity and sagacity. According to him, with the discontinuation of the suit, the plaintiffs and their supporters have demonstrated that national interest was superior to individual and group interest. But in their swift reaction through their lawyer, Mamman Osuman (SAN), the Lawan's camp described the report of the withdrawal of the suit as "erroneous and mischievous."

Osuman said the case that was withdrawn was the one filed by Anthony Adeniyi, a former Senator. He gave the suit number as: FHC/ABJ/CS/647/2015, dated July 24, which also challenged the purported elections of Saraki and Ekweremadu. Osuman pointed out that the second suit was filed by Senator Hunkuyi and four others.

He explained that the two suits are different in content and they could be distilled from their respective grounds, reliefs sought, affidavit evidence, parties and declarations sought. "Despite the legal possibility that the suit discontinued could be re-filed, the media should have been more specific about the case that was withdrawn. Osuman stated that the prayers sought in the originating summons still persist, namely, that the elections which brought Saraki and Ekweremadu are "illegal, irregular and non-sustainable because the Senate Standing Orders (2011) was not amended in the manner stipulated by Rules 110 of the 2011 Senate Standing Orders to produce the purported document titled: Senate Standing Orders 2015 (as amended)".

Daily Trust reports that the forgery suit seems to be the last weapon in the political arsenal of the Lawan's camp in their quest to actualise their dream. However, while the storm is gathering momentum by the day, Saraki got a nod of 81 senators shortly before they embarked on recess. At least 47 senators from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and 34 others from the All Progressives Congress (APC), passed a vote of confidence on Saraki and other principal officers of the Senate. The vote of confidence, according to pundits, has ruled out the possibility of impeachment as it would be difficult for the Lawan's camp to secure the number needed to effect a change of leadership. This is the second controversy that the senators would be facing so far while 'enjoying' their six weeks recess. The first was the reported abuse of Senate Standing Rules in the probing of Ibrahim Lamorde, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The Senate standing committee on ethics, privileges and public petition, chaired by Senator Samuel Anyanwu, invited Lamorde for questioning over allegation leveled against him by one Dr. George Uboh. However, it was the PDP Senate Caucus that first picked hole in the probe, saying due process was breached. This was followed by the members of the Unity Forum who equally faulted the process. Later, Ali Ndume, the Senate leader, confessed that there was procedural snag in the processes of probing the EFCC boss. Commenting on the controversy at the Senate, Habu Mohammed, a professor of political economy and politics of development at the Bayero University Kano (BUK), said the upper chamber has been a hot-bed of contestation in every democracy.

"In Nigeria, the recent crisis bedeviling the chamber is a manifestation of class character of politics in the country. Various interests have for a long time tried to cling to power and consolidate their material pursuits. Worse still, the ruling party had no prior plan to control the distress ego of its members, old and new. This has generated a lot of disregard to party supremacy and interest at the expense of individual member particularistic interest.

"The members of the Senate are like seed of different trees brought together as members of the 8th Senate. Unless and until they settle their grudges amicably in the context of their party, the problem will continue to linger because it goes beyond the internal politics of the Senate. "There are some forces outside the National Assembly that are also fanning the ember of conflict in the upper chamber.

Unlike in the EFCC chairman's case where the Senate leadership came out to accept its mistake, the situation is different in the case of the reported ‘peddling of falsehood’ in respect of the withdrawal of suit over the purported forgery. The spokesman of the Senate has not come out to either defend his statement or withdraw it. Observers are watching.