Stakeholders from the Northern part of the country are still frantically pushing for the office of the Senate President to be occupied by someone from the region, fearing that the zone will be completely out of power if all of the executive, legislative and judiciary arms of government are headed by the south.
There are strong indications that the office of the President of the Senate will likely be ceded to the South following so as to allow for the emergence of a Christian leader of the red chamber in a bid to tone down the religious outcry that followed the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress in the last presidential election that produced Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as president and vice president-elect.
However, a number of candidates from the north are in the race for the office of the Senate President including the incumbent Senators Ahmed Lawan, Jibrin Barau and Abubakar Yari who are all Muslims.
Although Senator Godswill Akpabio from Akwa Ibom is heavily favoured, the northern politicians are pushing hard for the seat.
Our correspondent reliably learnt from the source within the ruling APC that the sentiments the northern elements are advancing include the fact that it will be out of place to allow all the arms of government headed by the south.
It will be recalled that at a time in the administration of the outgoing administration, all of the arms of government were held by the north; President Muhammed Buhari as the head of the executive, Ahmed Lawan and Justice Tanko Muhammed were head of the legislative and judiciary.
“The unique thing here is, most of the votes come from the North, so the peculiarity of the 2023 election is different, thus the North need to have a strong representation with the leadership of the National Assembly,” Adamu Garba, a presidential candidate under APC argued.
“If Senate President is coming from the South, it means both Executive, Legislative and Judiciary leaderships will all come from the South. This is not a balance. o balance things up, the Senate President should at least come from the North. This is not too much to ask!”
Nevertheless, our correspondent gathered that Akpabio is still leading the race for the seat. The announcement of his endorsement is being delayed by the fact that the leadership of APC is yet to finish negotiation with other aspirants and stakeholders.
