A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano State, Malam Muazu Dansarauniya, has advised the leadership of the party to zone the Senate presidency to the Northwest region.
Dansaraunita told newsmen in Kano on Friday that the party in the zone had performed credibly well during the presidential election. He explained that it is only democratic for the party’s leadership to ensure that the seat for the Senate presidency comes to the Northwest and to Kano specifically, the political heartbeat of the north.
He explained that the APC, despite the votes it had contributed to the election of the President-elect, Sen. Bola Tinubu, has only one senator, Sen. Barau Jibril, in Kano state and any mistake of not making him the Senate president will affect the strength and control of the region by the party.
He therefore called on the APC leadership to ensure that Sen. Jibril emerged the Senate president in order to form a rallying point for the party in the Northwest in particular and the North at large.
“The President-elect and leadership of the party is to look at the votes recorded in the Northwest during the presidential election as a yard stick in zoning the Senate presidency to the region.
“We have done very well in this presidential election. We have contributed the most votes.
“So you see, even in terms of reward and recognition, we have the right to say we need to have the Senate presidency.
“The Presidency has gone to our partners in the Southwest, the Vice Presidency has gone to our partners in the Northeast, and the largest voting block and the largest political block deserves the presidency of the Senate,” he said.
Dansarauniya described the call by the NNPP as deliberately geared towards seizing control of the region by disallowing the APC to have a strong political leadership like the Senate president from the region.
He said that calls by the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) Reps-elect, Abdulmumin Kofa, who condemned allotting the Senate presidency to the North as a disservice to the nation.
“I believe that is unfair for a minority party to basically come in and dictate to the APC what to do.
“But very importantly, we need to look at the motive behind this statement.
“We know that Jibrin is from NNPP and the NNPP leader is from Kano and Kano is the heartbeat of Northwestern politics as well as Northern Nigeria.
“So what they are trying to do is to strategically convince APC not to put a political leader on that space so that they can monopolise the politics of the region. We can see their plans,” said the APC chieftain.
“Therefore, if NNPP people are saying that you don’t love Nigeria if you say you are giving us the Senate presidency, it is just a strategy to mobilise and have the entire Northwest to themselves, which is a very important block.
“Now we have seen how close this election has been, Northwest votes alone could have physically doubled what the rest of Nigerian votes could have given if we galvanise and institutionalise support in the region.
“So I’m calling on our leaders, the National Chairman of our party, the President-elect, to look at what the president has outlined as a government of national competence, and when we look at competence, we will not go beyond our senatorial presentation in Kano in the person of Sen. Barau Jibril.
“Some people talk about fairness and equity in terms of politics. I want to highlight this, democracy has a principal rule, this rule is about participation,” Dansarauniya explained.
“You cannot not participate and then ask for a reward. The people that are asking for a reward, we are asking them to galvanise themselves, organise themselves in the next election and contribute to the success of the party.
“So you cannot basically deny the party votes and when the party is basically and equitably and fairly sharing its positions you now say because of national unity, you want to take the critical position.
“All I’m saying to our brothers in other regions is 2027 is not far away, go back, work hard, join us to make success of the next election and you will get your fair share of reward and recognition,” he said.
