APC Considers North For Senate President, South For Speaker

By Musa Abdullahi Krishi

The ruling All Progressives
Congress (APC) may cede Senate President’s position to the northern part
of the country and speaker to the south, Daily Trust has learnt.

The
APC, which has so far garnered comfortable majority in both chambers
with 64 senators-elect and over 200 ‎reps-elect, is said to be making
serious efforts to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2015 when some of
its members defied its directive on the National Assembly leadership
positions.

It was gathered that some major stakeholders of the
party are pushing for the Senate president’s seat to be zoned to the
North, and most probably North-east, and the position of speaker to the
South, particularly Southwest.

As for deputy Senate president, it
was learnt that the stakeholders were pushing for it to go to the South
South zone, while also making case for either the North-west or
North-central to be given the position of deputy speaker.

Already,
three senators from the North-east, Senate Leader Ahmad Lawan ‎(Yobe),
Mohammed Ali Ndume (Borno) and Mohammed Danjuma Goje (Gombe) as well as
one from the North Central, Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa) were reported to
have indicated interest in occupying the seat.

As for speaker,
only House Leader Femi Gbajabiamila (Lagos) has so far indicated
interest from the Southwest, while the two from the North-east, are
Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno) and Abdulrazak Namdas (Adamawa).

In
the North Central, Ahmed Idris Wase (Plateau) and Umar Bago (Niger)
have indicated interest, with Babangida Ibrahim (Katsina Northwest) also
showing interest.

Meanwhile, it was gathered that Gov. Abdulaziz
Yari of Zamfara State, who won election to the Senate last week, has
indicated interest to vie for the seat of deputy Senate president. Yari
was a member of the House of Reps before becoming governor.

Also,
two reps-elect, Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila and Aminu Suleiman, both from
Kano State, have indicated interest to vie for the deputy speaker and
speaker’s seats respectively.

Daily Trust learnt that those
pushing for Kawu were of the view that‎ he should be paired with
Gbajabiamila as the duo had good working relationship in the past as
minority leader and deputy minority leader for eight years.

It
was further gathered that both Kawu and Gbajabiamila had commenced talks
on the collaboration to realise their ambitions, but that talks were
still ongoing among the lawmakers and beyond.

Source:- Dailytrustng