Save for last-minute change of plan, there were strong indications that the elections of presiding officers of the incoming 10th National Assembly might be delayed on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, the D-Day for the inauguration of the new Assembly.
Impeccable sources told LEADERSHIP that given foreseeable stalemate in the numbers of lawmakers-elect backing the annointed candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in both chambers of the 10th National Assembly on one hand and the ones supporting those insisting on contesting for the presiding offices against the ruling party’s directive, the proclamation instrument to be issued by the President to the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), Sani Magaji Tambuwal, for the inauguration of the new Assembly might be temporarily withheld on the D-Day.
The proclamation letter from the President is an instrument that will empower the CNA to proceed to inaugurate the 10th session of the bicameral legislature in their respective chambers prior to election of the presiding officers.
The sources, who are top chieftains of the APC, confided in our Correspondent that the tactic to be employed by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who would have been sworn-in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at the time, will be used to buy more time to reign in those considered as dissident lawmakers-elect on the platform of APC in order to avoid defeat for the annointed party candidates and embarrassment for the President and ruling APC, reminiscent of the 2011 and 2015 episodes.
LEADERSHIP recalls that Senators-elect Godswill Akpabio (South-South) and Barau Jibril (North-West) were announced as preferred candidates of the APC for the offices of Senate President and Deputy in the 10th National Assembly, respectively. While Members-elect Tajudeen Abbas (North-West) and Benjamin Kalu (North-East) were chosen to emerge as Speaker and Deputy in the next House of Representatives, respectively.
Dissatisfied with the party’s decisions without wider consultations with relevant stakeholders, Senator-elect Abdul’aziz Yari (North-West); incumbent Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu (South-East), and Senator-elect Osita Izunaso (South-East) have vowed to contest for the office of Senate President in order to defend the independence of the legislature as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Standing Rule of the Senate.
Also, Senator Sani Musa, whose North-Central zone was completely left out in the APC zoning arrangement, is being backed by fellow North-Central Senators-elect to vie for the office of the Deputy Senate President against the party’s choice of candidate, Barau.
Meanwhile, there are reports that the trio of Yari, Kalu and Izunaso were contemplating forming a an alliance with the former Zamfara State Governor as the lead candidate to battle Akpabio with the support of minority caucus members of the yet-to-be inaugurated 10th Assembly.
Similarly in the yet-to-be inaugurated House of Representatives, members of the G6 alliance comprising deputy Speaker Ahmed Idris Wase (North-Central), Hon. Mukhtar Aliyu Betara (North-East), Hon. Miriam Onuoha (South-East), Hon. Yusuf Adamu Gagdi (North-Central), Hon. Aminu Jaji (North-West), and member-elect Sada Soli Jibia (North-West), have vowed to produce a consensus candidate from among them to defeat the APC’s choice of Abbas.
The decisions of Yari, Kalu and Izunaso on one hand and the G6 in the House on the other hand, to go ahead with their aspirations were apparently against the backdrop that the national leadership of the APC might have reneged on the promise made to them to review the controversial zoning formula adopted by the party.
LEADERSHIP reports that already tongues were wagging over the choices of Senator Barau as Deputy Senate President and Hon. Abbas as Speaker, when both are from the same North-West geopolitical zone at the detriment of North-Central, which was completely ingored in the APC zoning formula.
Also, Zamfara West Senator-elect and Senate President aspirant, Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari, has protested against the zoning formula of the governing APC for the 10th Senate leadership positions on the basis that it was in conflict with the 1999 Constitution (as amended) as it breaches the federal character principle enshrined in the constitution.
Yari said the religion balancing rationale behind the APC zoning arrangement was unknown to the 1999 Constitution (as amended) as the nation’s law book only provides for federal character in sharing of offices for balancing and not religion as a factor.
The former Zamfara State governor and one-time member of the House of Representatives, who spoke last week Tuesday while featuring as a guest on Arise News Channel’s breakfast programme, ‘The Morning Show’, noted that the APC zoning formula for election of presiding officers for the 10th Senate was unconstitutional and unfair to Northern Nigeria as all the heads of the three arms of government will be Southerners in the next dispensation.
“I am particularly talking about the APC, if they decide to zone (Senate leadership positions), we ask them a question, on what do you based the zoning? Have you taken the federal character into cognizance, where the President, the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the National Assembly chairman, the three arms of government, are in one place?
“The present Chief Justice of Nigeria is from Oyo State; Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the President-elect is from Lagos State, and Akpabio is from Akwa Ibom State at the same time. While the next Chief Justice of the Federation (Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun) is also going to be from the South-West,” Yari had pointed out.
