NASS Leadership: Northern Youths Reject Akpabio, Others 

The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has noted the desperation by certain interest group in the ruling All Progressives Congress to impose as President of the Senate, Mr Godswill Akpabio saying it was made at the detriment of other sections.

In a statement by the spokesperson of the CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, and made available to LEADERSHIP in Abuja, yesterday, he said this desperate group is also working to impose a preferred candidate as House Speaker in total disregard for democratic ethics and constitutionalism.

He also noted the involvement of “such Northern collaborators as Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano in this diabolic scheme that potentially threatens to pitch the president-elect against other sections of the country, in particular the North, from where he extracted the bulk of his winning votes.”

He said this attempt at producing the next National Assembly leadership through an endorsement process that had turned all accepted indices of our national demography on their heads, is one that was clearly aimed at achieving dubious political goals.

He said that it is ridiculous, contradictory and shameful for the APC, which stoutly resisted the temptation to limit the contest for the presidential ticket to zoning and opted for democratic primaries should now confine the democratic space for the selection of the Senate leadership, adding that it is unreasonable and irresponsible for the party to suggest that a set of eminent personalities carefully elected by their respective constituencies as Senators and Representatives in the federal legislature cannot democratically elect leaders for themselves.

“That this conspiracy to tamper with the National Assembly leadership selection process that clearly puts the North at disadvantage, is actively perpetrated with the connivance of some individuals from the region, and accommodated by the personal ambition and greed of some of those that present themselves as northern political leaders.

“That the suspicious involvement of El-Rufai who has lost all the three Senate seats from his state to the opposition and Ganduje who lost two and barely managed to hold unto one, is a sign of desperation for personal political ascendancy at the expense of our hard earned democracy,” he added.

He said the coalition has therefore categorically hold that any attempt to hoist a National Assembly leadership on the nation by resorting to draconian, Machiavellian, undemocratic and unconstitutional means is downright repugnant to the collective sensibilities of Nigerians, blatant disrespect for constitutionalism, disregard for rules of fairness and ordinary decency and therefore unacceptable and would be roundly resisted.

He emphatically called on the leadership of the APC to reclaim its statesmanship by immediately reversing the decision on Akpabio and Abbass, and setting the stage for the emergence of a credible National Assembly leadership through democratic elections by its members as enshrined in the constitution.

He warned that if this and any similar arrangements are allowed to pass through, the North as a whole would be deliberately shortchanged by stripping it of the three main democratic influences; the executive, the legislature and the judiciary which would be absolutely unacceptable as it is unjustifiable.

He urged Abdul-Aziz Yari, who he described as having assumed the symbol of Northern aspiration to the Senate presidency, that he would lose respect and relevance if he submits to the temptation to quit the race for any undemocratic arrangement other than elections.