The battle for the remaining principal offices in the Senate has taken a different twist as the two former allies Senators Ali Ndume and Opeyemi Bamidele have locked horns for the Senate Leader seat.
Ndume and Bamidele played significant roles in the emergence of Senator Gidswill Akpabio as the President of the Senate; the former was the campaign director while the latter was his deputy.
However, the two ranking Senators have the same ambition of becoming the Senate Leader, and the pleas to have one of them back down have not been successful.
Iwitnesslive learnt that the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress met with the two gladiators on two different occasions but none of them is ready to step down.
A source said Bamidele (Ekiti) is favoured by the party but the North is now rallying behind Ndume.
“The North is now feeling marginalized in the Red Chamber following the loss of Abdulaziz Yari for the Senate Presidency and could reject the possibility of having another Southerner as the Leader of the Senate after Akpabio (Akwa Ibom) emerged the Senate President,” a source within the APC said.
Meanwhile, Bamidele’s camp said the majority leader was often picked from the same region as the Senate president, insisting that Ndume was once a beneficiary of such an arrangement.
The source said, “In the 8th Senate when Bukola Saraki (Kwara) was the Senate president, Ali Ndume (Borno) served as majority leader and later Ahmad Lawan (Yobe). Also, in Lawan’s 9th Senate, the majority leader was picked from the North.”
Iwitnesslive learnt that as of the press time, the decision of the ruling party was yet unknown as the APC is ready to implement the input of President Bola Tinubu.
The Senate is expected to reconvene for plenary on Tuesday during which the remaining principal offices will be filled.
The ruling APC is expected to produce the majority leader, deputy majority leader, chief whip and deputy chief whip.
The four principal positions reserved for the minority caucus are minority leader, deputy minority leader, minority whip and deputy minority whip.
