Northern, Southwestern Elders Intervene In NASS Leadership Scramble

Elder statesmen and leading traditional rulers from the North and the South West have intervened to douse tensions over the race for leadership of the 10th National Assembly.

The elders, it was gathered, weighed in to stem the tide of bad blood growing among the legislators and polarisation of the country on ethnic and religious lines.

The unfolding tussle for leadership of the 10th Assembly has pitched loyalists of President Muhammadu Buhari against those of the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, creating a crack within the All Progressives Congress (APC).

This followed the recent contentious micro zoning of the senate president to the South South (Senator Godswill Akpabio); deputy senate president (North West, Senator Jibrin Barau); speaker of House of Representatives (North West, Hon Tajudeen Abbas) and deputy speaker (South East, Hon Benjamin Karu).

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Although the party has since declared that it would review the zoning arrangement after protests by lawmakers elected on its platform, the  battle has also set legislators from the six geo-political zones of the country against one another and widening lines of ethnicity and religion among the senators-elect and their contemporaries in the House of Representatives.

From the North, there are three contenders, namely; Abubakar Yari, Jibrin Barau and  Sani Musa, while from the South are Osita Izunaso, Orji Kalu and Godswill Akpabio. There are also unconfirmed reports that a former governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomole, may join the race.

It was learnt that the northern statesmen including two former military heads of state and some first class traditional rulers in the North and South West were said to have started reaching out to lawmakers to douse the rising tension.

A senator-elect who spoke to political correspondents in Abuja yesterday on condition of anonymity said the elder statesmen reached out to key senators particularly from the North to give preference to Nigeria’s unity and national cohesion.

The lawmaker who said he was invited by two retired generals and two traditional rulers from the North Central and South West on the matter,

noted that the elders’ appeal was for the northern lawmakers not to use their higher numerical strength to emasculate the senate in the leadership contest.

“They appealed to us to emulate the APC governors from northern Nigeria who in the most patriotic manner gave all their support to the emergence of a southern candidate for the party and did all within their powers for the victory of Bola Tinubu from the South West at the polls.

“They are talking to us, especially those that have declared interest in the presidency of the senate among us to drop their legitimate ambitions for the sake of unity, cohesion of Nigeria and support the southern region in producing it,” he said.

The senator-elect, however, stated that the northern senators were not initially  opposed to the South producing the senate president, adding that they were upset because of the way Akpabio was unilaterally picked.