APC considers North for Senate president, South for speaker

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may cede Senate President’s position to the northern part of the country and speaker to the south, Daily Trust has learnt.

The APC, which has so far garnered comfortable majority in both chambers with 64 senators-elect and over 200 ‎reps-elect, is said to be making serious efforts to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2015 when some of its members defied its directive on the National Assembly leadership positions.

It was gathered that some major stakeholders of the party are pushing for the Senate president’s seat to be zoned to the North, and most probably North-east, and the position of speaker to the South, particularly Southwest.

As for deputy Senate president, it was learnt that the stakeholders were pushing for it to go to the South South zone, while also making case for either the North-west or North-central to be given the position of deputy speaker.

Already, three senators from the North-east, Senate Leader Ahmad Lawan ‎(Yobe), Mohammed Ali Ndume (Borno) and Mohammed Danjuma Goje (Gombe) as well as one from the North Central, Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa) were reported to have indicated interest in occupying the seat.

As for speaker, only House Leader Femi Gbajabiamila (Lagos) has so far indicated interest from the Southwest, while the two from the North-east, are Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno) and Abdulrazak Namdas (Adamawa).

In the North Central, Ahmed Idris Wase (Plateau) and Umar Bago (Niger) have indicated interest, with Babangida Ibrahim (Katsina Northwest) also showing interest.

Meanwhile, it was gathered that Gov. Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, who won election to the Senate last week, has indicated interest to vie for the seat of deputy Senate president. Yari was a member of the House of Reps before becoming governor.

Also, two reps-elect, Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila and Aminu Suleiman, both from Kano State, have indicated interest to vie for the deputy speaker and speaker’s seats respectively.

Daily Trust learnt that those pushing for Kawu were of the view that‎ he should be paired with Gbajabiamila as the duo had good working relationship in the past as minority leader and deputy minority leader for eight years.

It was further gathered that both Kawu and Gbajabiamila had commenced talks on the collaboration to realise their ambitions, but that talks were still ongoing among the lawmakers and beyond.