Kalu, Yari, Sani And The Zoning Conundrum

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has presented Godswill Akpabio as the consensus candidate for the 10th Assembly Senate President.

There have been several reactions with some pundits stating that the Senators will still decide their presiding officers when they are inaugurated in June.

Two former Governors, Uzor Orji Kalu, who is now the Senate chief whip and Abdulaziz Yari, a senator-elect from Zamfara among others have protested Against the APC Zoning.

APC nominated Godswill Akpabio, a former minister of Niger Delta affairs, and Barau Jibrin, the Senator representing Kano North, as president of the senate, and deputy.

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But Kalu, Yari, Sen Sani Musa amongst others have rejected such an adoption.

Yari and Kalu have said that they are not satisfied with the arrangement.

According to Kalu, zoning is always not for an individual but a region and asks for a level playing field.

“We are here to present our letter of grievances to you and also tell this honourable house that as leaders, we are not satisfied with the arrangement,” Yari said after himself and Kalu visited the national chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu with a protest letter.

“What we are expecting from you people is to give us fair play, at least if nothing, to mention that a particular position is zoned and anybody in that zone can’t participate,” Yari said.

Adamu, who said the party would go through their protest letter and address their grievances, said they should wait for last word.

“Hold the fire until the last word is heard from us, we are the custodians of the party as NWC, but we are not acting alone. The voice of Tinubu the President-elect is an essential voice,” Adamu said.

“We must accommodate him the best we can. I will not compromise on that. He is right now outside the country and by the grace of God when he comes back we will go back to the drawing board and put our heads together again and see what we will get.

“I cannot preempt that, I will wait until we hold that meeting with the president-elect,” Adamu added.

But, elder statesman and the immediate past Secretary-General of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Anthony Sani, said he is totally in support of the comment made by the Senate Chief Whip Orji Uzo Kalu that positions are not zoned to individuals.

Sani who said he is not a fan of politics of identity symbolized by zoning because such politics presupposes power which has to do with access to national resources should be turn-by-turn.

“To me, such practice amounts to promotion of failure of leadership in distribution of access to national resources fairly, justly and equitably.

“But since we have to live with it till when we are able to deliver on the promise of democracy premised on the triple foundation of justice, liberty and common decency, the zoning should be done properly by constituency and not by named individuals.

“To that end, the observations made by Sen Orji Kalu on zoning to be by constituencies and not for named persons is apt and, thus, should be looked into properly by the rainmakers in the ruling party for performance,” Sani added.

Whatever happens, Nigerians will know their leaders in the national assembly in June.