Race for Senate President: Tinubu maintains that zoning should be to the south

On Wednesday, the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership and a few members of the National Assembly met with the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to discuss zoning the leadership of the upcoming 10th National Assembly.

According to reports, Tinubu rejected suggestions for the Senate Presidency to be zoned to the South-South made by three senators from the South West and certain APC leadership members.

According to information obtained from the meeting, Tinubu stated that he was just in favor of having the number three position assigned to the South and not to any specific zone.

Reliable sources report that Tinubu argued that it was incorrect to suggest zoning the position of Senate President to the South South only because APC members supported zoning the presidency to the South and not to any of the other three zones in the region, which produced him as a presidential candidate and president-elect.

According to information obtained by our correspondent, Tinubu stated that zoning the position to the South would allow all qualified candidates from the South East and South South to compete fairly for senators’ votes, much like how APC delegates chose the party’s presidential candidate before the election.

The president-elect instructed the party stakeholders to go back and revise their recommendations to be the zoning of Senate President to the South in order to prevent a controversy that would generate crisis in the party.

He stated that his standards for the leadership of the National Assembly should be fairness, equity, religious balance, and regional balance.

According to sources, Senator Godswill Akpabio’s supporters infiltrated the APC NWC to persuade members to push for the micro-zoning of the Senate President’s office to the South South.

The Akpabio camp, it was learned, was expecting that if this passes, the Akwa Ibom senator—the only APC senator of note from the region—would be the only contender.

The plan to have a single South South candidate by zoning the office to the zone fell flat with the president-elect, who, in his wisdom, rejected pressures from some members of the party leadership and the Southwest senators for the zoning of the Senate presidency to the South South, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting.

All of the media speculation that the President and the NWC had chosen South South is untrue. The role should be assigned to the South, the President said.

Further refuting the claim, a senator-elect who requested anonymity said that, in contrast to what the three senators from the South West claimed, the majority of elected representatives from the region and other senators had lined up behind Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, who is currently the Chief Whip of the Senate and is from the South-East geopolitical zone.

“The three senators from the South West lied to the president-elect Tuesday night that they were all backing Akpabio for Senate President, but Asiwaju could not be duped,” he claimed. He reached out to the other senators-to-be to double-check the claim and found it to be false.

“These three senators cannot speak for us because we have good connections with all Nigerians as South-Westerners. They cannot take the South-West senators for granted since they are not our leaders. Our boss is a senator and a former governor.

“As for us, we have decided to act in the best interests of the nation because that is the only way President-elect Asiwaju can rule successfully. As this nation is composed of the three major ethnic groups of Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba, we have decided to support fairness and justice.

“Since the president-elect is not petty, we are pleased that he did not pay attention to them. He values justice and wants to act morally. The favored candidate has already been chosen by the 12 senators from the South-West. Eleven senators, including the senior senator, support Senator Orji Uzor Kalu for Senate President and Senator Sani Musa for Vice President of the Senate.

There is no turning back because both the northern and southern senators trust these two senators’ leadership. The good news is that Asiwaju has a strong moral code and will adhere to it no matter what.

According to information acquired, the majority of APC senators-elect support Kalu to serve as the 10th Senate’s leader, but those from the North believe the former governor of Abia State stands out due to his extensive experience and political background.