A pro-South South group, Citizens Network for Peace and Development in Nigeria (CNPDN), believed to be dominated by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s loyalists have endorsed Senator Godswill Akpabio for the 10th Senate Presidency.
Members of the CNPDN have called on the National Working Committee (NWC) and the various organs of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), to zone the Senate Presidency to the South South.
At a press conference in Abuja yesterday, the national secretary of CNPDN, Francis Okereke Wainwei, said there is the need to allow the South-South geo-political zone to produce the president of the Senate.
Wainwei said, “We have examined the leadership credentials of senators -elect from the South-South zone that have the competence and experience to progressively pilot the affairs of the Senate of the 10th National Assembly.
“Our wide-ranging and robust consultations revealed that Godswill Akpabio is the right senator-elect with the competence, national acceptability and political experience to effectively pilot the Senate to greater heights. Akpabio being a former minority leader of the Senate under the PDP and now to be president of the Senate under the APC, can be a true unifier; he can be the rallying point of all the senators and a formidable bridge between the executive and the legislature, having also been a former governor and minister.
“We are, therefore, using this medium to also call on all patriotic senators-elect to support and vote massively for Akpabio to emerge as the Senate president of the 10th Senate for the betterment of the country,” he said.
He said the South South zone has not been given the opportunity to produce the Senate president since the return of democratic rule in 1999.
CNPDN was the first group in 2022 that called on Jonathan to run for the office of the president again.
Following the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in June 2022 who was the presidential candidate of the APC, the pro-South South group, despite the popularity of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), openly endorsed Tinubu in December 2022, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital.
But making the case for Akpabio, the Bayelsa-born CNPDN national secretary, Wainwei, said zoning the Senate presidency of the 10th Senate to the South-South zone will foster national unity and engender a true sense of belonging to the people of the geopolitical zone.
He said, “It will also drastically reduce the usual acrimony that characterises such struggle for power among the geo-political zones, thereby, reducing unnecessary distractions for the peaceful and smooth take-off of the new dispensation under the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
Currently, Godswill Akpabio, former governor of Akwa Ibom is the only ranking senator from the South South that is a member of the 10th National Assembly.
Based on Senate standing rules, only ranking members of the upper legislative chamber are eligible to contest for the positions of the President and Deputy President of the Senate respectively.
Wainwei said, “The call to zone the Senate Presidency of the 10th Senate to the South -South is also strengthened by the fact that the APC got more than 25 percent votes in each of the six South-South states, irrespective of the fact that before now, it had been known as the stronghold of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
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