In a move that will please some politicians and anger others, some concerned stakeholders in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have made their feelings known over zoning of Senate leadership.
The stakeholders in a statement made available to Politics Nigeria endorsed the reported zoning of the Senate presidency to the South South and adoption of Senator Godswill Akpabio as president.
According to them, virtually all the states in the South East had at one time or the other produced Senate presidents.
They also supported the zoning of the deputy senate president slot to the Northwest and specifically for Kano senator, Jibrin Barau.
This was disclosed by convener of the stakeholders, Okpokwu Ogenyi. He added that votes delivery in the last presidential election was a factor that must be considered in picking the presiding officers of the National Assembly.
He said: “We are aware that zoning is not done in a vacuum, so we highly recommend Senator Godswill Akpabio for the position of Senate President and Senator Barau Jibrin as Deputy Senate President respectively. ”This will go a long way in building the confidence of APC members across the country in preparation for the future of our great party, the APC.
“It is pertinent to note that, in the South, South-South contributed the second highest votes after South-West which house the President-elect.
”The North-West gave the party the highest votes in the North with Kano state consistently giving APC the highest vote per state in every election since the formation of the APC.
“In the National Assembly, Senator Akpabio is the most ranking senator from the South-South under the platform of the APC while Senator Barau Jibrin is the most ranking senator from the North West.
“We sincerely appeal to the National Chairman of our great party, Sen Abdullahi Adamu, and his National Working Committee, NWC, members to zone the Senate Presidency seat to the South-South and the Deputy Senate President to the North West, preferably micro-zoned to Akwa Ibom State and Deputy Senate President to Kano State to pave way for the most ranking senators, Godswill Akpabio and Barau I. Jibrin to emerge as the Senate President and Deputy Senate President of the 10th Senate respectively.”
