Northern Lawmakers Insist On Producing Senate Leader

Despite the emergence of presiding officers of the 10th National Assembly, all is still not well with the federal legislature, as a fresh crisis has erupted in the camp of Senate President Godswill Akpabio over who becomes Senate leader.

LEADERSHIP gathered that Northern Senators elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are insisting on producing the next Senate leader.

Some of the Senators who spoke to journalists in confidence said the push by some South West lawmakers to produce the majority leader would cause further dissatisfaction in the Red Chamber.

Calling on the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC to ensure that Northern Senators are not maginalised in the composition of principal offices in the National Assembly, one of the lawmakers noted that with imbalance in the Senate, the new leadership may not last.

Another Senator said, “Now, I learnt that they are pushing for Opeyemi Bamidele to be Senate Leader. Bamidele is a junior senator who can’t hold the Red Chamber together in any crisis. We know the Director of Akpabio’s campaign. Bamidele was the deputy.

“When Ahmad Lawan campaigned and he became the Senate president, it was the Director General of his campaign organisation, Abdullahi Yahaya, that became the Senate Leader.

“When Ndume campaigned for Saraki, he became the Senate Leader. When Ndoma Egba was made the campaign coordinator for David Mark, he insisted he should be the Senate Leader.

“Now, they say they want to make the deputy campaign coordinator the Senate Leader. Even himself should not have started all these. It does not arise,” the lawmaker said, adding that they want unity in the upper chamber.

Another Senator pointed out that the only reason some people are pushing for Bamidele to be the Senate leader is because he is Yoruba.

“And they forgot that it was this same reason that made us stand for Akpabio. If not for some of us, Akpabio would have lost.

“Even with the fight that we put on, we escaped with how many votes? Only 17 and Yari needed only nine votes to win. He got 46. And you know that at least there are more than 20 people that were in that Akpabio camp because of some of us and not because of Akpabio. These are facts.

“Bamidele has never been in leadership. Ndume was a minority leader. He was a Senate Leader. He led the campaign for Akpabio and he’s older than Bamidele in the National Assembly. The best way to pacify the Northern Senators is to make Ndume the Senate leader,” the lawmaker said.

Meanwhile, Akpabio has come under serious attacks from lawmakers following his appointment of chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, all from the South.

This, LEADERSHIP gathered, is already pitching the Northern Senators against the Senate president and they are now insisting that the leader of the Senate should come from the North.

On Monday, Akpabio appointed Barrister Sylvester Okonkwo as his chief of staff and Saviour Enyiekere as his deputy chief of staff.

It was gathered that Senate presidents have always appointed people into these offices from the North and South.

Akpabio’s appointment, it was learnt, is making some Senators to start a fresh alignment within the National Assembly.

To this effect, a Senator said, “That is why he doesn’t seek advice. How can he appoint Chief of Staff and Deputy all from the South? The deputy should be from the North. He is creating problems for himself. If he had sought my advice, he would have taken his Chief of Staff from the South and Deputy from the North. It is wrong.”