Senate Presidency: I Have No Anointed Candidate, Says Buhari...

APC may settle for a consensus

Chuks Okocha Ezigbo

Onyebuchi The president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, has said he will not endorse anyone seeking the leadership position in the eighth National Assembly.

Buhari, who reacted to insinuations that he might have been backing some of the aspirants, promised that he would not interfere in the process of choosing the leadership of the National Assembly but that he was ready to work with any leader of the Senate or House of Representatives irrespective of what part of the country he or she comes from.

This declaration is coinciding with moves in the All Progressives Congress (APC) to go for a consensus candidate in the election of a senate president given that many of the senators elect appear to be supporting Sentaor Bukola Saraki for the number three position in the land.

In a statement released yesterday, Buhari described as false, insinuations in the media that he was in support of a particular senator’s emergence as leader or that he belonged to any camp pushing for the emergence of a leader from a particular part of the country.

“I am prepared to work with the leaders who the House or Senate selects. “It doesn’t matter who the person is or where he or she is from,” he said.

He added that these insinuations were probably borne out of people’s expectations based on the way things had happened in the past.

There has been a raging campaign by contestants for various leadership positions in the incoming National Assembly even as the party is yet to approve any zoning formula.

However, the president-elect reminded Nigerians that change had truly come and that it is no longer business as usual.

“There is due process for the selection of leaders of the National Assembly and I will not interfere in that process,” Buhari said.

He added: “The media and the public should begin to get used to no more ‘business as usual’. Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation. My administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments.”

And in a bid to defuse tension that normally goes with such key contests, some serving governors who are also heading to the senate may have begun a campaign for a consensus candidate in the senate leadership.

It was gathered that the Governors of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio and Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State (both senators-elect) are now the arrow heads of Senator Bukola Saraki’s campaign for the senate presidency.

Also rooting for Saraki is the former Governor of Ebonyi State, Dr. Sam Egwu, who is also a senator-elect.

At the a meeting held on Tuesday night at Transcorp Hilton Hotel that ended in the early hours of yesterday, the senators backing Saraki have risen to about 76.

The meeting co-chaired by four senators: Senator Gobir (Sokoto), Dino Melaye (Kogi) Senator Saraki (Kwara) and Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), they spoke of leadership qualities expected from the would-be senate president that have been found in Senator Saraki.

According to the senators, the expected senate president must have the following qualities of leadership, accessible, command respect, patriotic, have friends across the country and above all liberal- minded.

‘According to one of the senators from Ondo State, (name withheld), “These qualities are found in Saraki because he is humble and has respect for all.”

The senators at the meeting vowed to resist imposition in the leadership of the senate, “we are mature and have held various leadership position in life both political and in corporate business. We are able to choose good leaders among ourselves than to have imposition of our leaders from outside” another senator from the Northwest zone said.

The meeting was attended by the leader of the Northeast zone, Senator Danjuma Goje, and senators- elect from Adamawa State, Binta Garba who was a former chairman of APC in Adamawa State.

Indication that there is a crack among the 21 senators from the Northwest were the presence of human right activist, Shehu Sani from Kaduna State who is also a senator -elect.

Senators from Sokoto State, Jigawa State, Zamfara State and Kebbi State also attended the meeting.

Senators who attended the meeting cut across the political divide of the APC and PDP. Senator Andy Uba and Uche Ekwunife and former PDP Delta State Chairman, Tony Nwaoboshi, were at the meeting.