At the conclusion of the Ramadan fast, the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership will decide whether to zone the leadership of the 10th National Assembly, according to Senate Spokesperson Ajibola Bashiru.
He claims that among other things, ranking, competence, capacity, religion, and the zone’s contribution to Bola Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election on February 25 are some of the criteria that will be taken into account when deciding who will become the next Senate President and House Speaker.
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Recall that the APC received more than 55 of the 109 Senate seats and more than 160 of the 360 House of Representatives seats in the elections, and that many APC chieftains and legislative member-elect have expressed interest in the highly sought-after positions in the red and green chambers. They include, among others, Osita Izunaso, Jibrin Barau, Godswill Akpabio, Dave Umahi, Ahmad Lawan, Ali Ndume, Abdulaziz Yari, and Dave Umahi.
Any senator-elect, according to Bashiru, is qualified to preside over the National Assembly. On which of the six geographical zones would produce the next Senate President, he said that the APC National Working Committee (NWC) and the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had not yet made a choice.
“I’m not aware that the NEC of our party has taken any decision but party leaders will be making a lot of permutations to ensure a seamless relationship between the executive and the legislative arms.”
“I believe that our party will ultimately take a decision on the zoning possibly after Ramadan and certainly before June when the next Assembly will be convoked,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday.
“It will be in the best interest of our party to zone the offices so that we can narrow the number of contestants because when you have eight persons from a single political party contesting, it creates a problem for us to having a cohesive force going into the election,” the APC lawmaker stated.
