10th Senate Presidency: Beyond Issue of Zoning

Campaign for the leadership position of the 10th National Assembly intensifies as President-elect Bola Tinubu returns to Nigeria on Monday. Sunday Aborisade in this report captures the frenzy political atmosphere among the aspirants jostling to become the next Senate President.

s the elected representatives in the nation’s apex legislative institution brace up for the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly in June, the clamour for the various leadership positions in both chambers has started creating tension and anxiety with interested ranking lawmakers justifying their suitability for the positions they’re eyeing.

Apart from the fact that aspirants, who are from  different geo-political zones across the country are intensifying their campaigns and lobbying other elected lawmakers for the presiding and principal officers positions, some had taken their campaigns to other critical stakeholders in the All Progressives Congress circle.

The tension and anxiety are felt more in the Senate as the entire Nigerians are interested in who becomes the number three person in the land that would also double as the Chairman of the National Assembly.

Many people are watching how the APC leadership would come up with a zoning arrangement that would address the ethno-religous imbalance in the polity following the emergence of a Yoruba Muslim and a Kanuri Muslim as President-elect and Deputy President-elect respectively.

There are clamours among major ethnic groups like the Igbo, Hausa, and Fulani while the minority ethnic nationalities in the North Central and the Niger Delta regions are also fighting tooth and nail to clinch any of the presiding officers positions.

The second angle to the intrigues among the aspirants is the need to balance the religious and tribal diversity of the country by allowing the Red Chamber in the 10th National Assembly to be led by an Igbo Christian from the South East or any of the minority ethnic nationalities in the South-South.

Those who are opposed to the above argument among the aspirants are insisting that the APC leadership should compensate the regions with the highest number of votes during the last presidential election with the leadership positions in the National Assembly instead of trying to employ sentiments to patronise regions where the party performed poorly in the poll.

However, the silence of the APC leadership on the zoning arrangements had led to an increase in the number of politicians jostling for the presiding officers positions in both the red and the green chambers.

The aspirants in the Senate include Senators  Jibrin Barau (Kano North);  Sani Musa (Niger East); Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom North-West); Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia North); Abdul-Aziz Yari (Zamfara West); Ali Ndume (Borno South), Osita Izunaso (Imo West), Dave Umahi (Ebonyi South) and Adams Oshiomhole (Edo North).

Different stakeholders from the various geopolitical zones have been campaigning for their preferred candidates while the aspirants continue to lobby their colleagues, party leadership, governors and other critical personalities within the APC.

Stakeholders in the North West geopolitical zone where the APC got the highest number of votes had insisted that the region should produce the next Senate president in appreciation of their support for the party during the presidential election.

They argued that despite being a strong base of the APC the North West had never produced a Senate president in the country.

According to the last presidential election results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, the North West zone recorded the highest number of votes while the South East produced the least.

The results showed that the zone gave the APC 2,653,235 votes, followed by the South West with 2,279,407 votes. The North Central gave the party 1,670,091 votes, while the North East produced 1,185,458 votes. The APC also got 799,957 votes in the South South zone.

But one of them, Senator Sani Musa from the North Central geopolitical zone had offered to sacrifice his ambition and contest the office of the Deputy Senate President to guarantee national peace and cohesion, which had already been threatened by the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the APC.

Nevertheless, strong leaders of the APC in the North West zone had argued that if the zone should produce the Senate presidency it would brighten the chances of the party in the 2027 elections.

They insisted that the APC leadership should reward performance at the polls for the sake of unity, peace, progress, and national cohesion.

The current Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Barau Jibrin, is the only aspirant from the zone who has shown significant interest in contesting the position of the Senate President.

He had not only set up a formidable team working on his ambition, he had also put in place a campaign office at the prestigious Transcorp Hilton Hotel in the heart of the nation’s capital.

Party leaders from the zone have said Jibrin remained the most experience and competent Senator for Senate presidency in terms of character, education and legislative performances over the years, considering his years of experience in the parliament and his understanding of legislative business.

Jibrin was first elected in 1999 to the House of Representatives to represent the Tarauni Federal Constituency of Kano State. In the green chamber, he chaired the committee on appropriations and also served as a member of the committee on power.

He got elected into the Senate in 2015 to represent Kano North and has won re-election since then. In the red chamber, Barau was appointed vice chairman of the Committee on Petroleum Resources (downstream) of the Senate and subsequently became the chairman of the same committee.

In 2016, the then Senate president, Dr Bukola Saraki, reshuffled the leadership of standing committees, and Senator Barau Jibrin was reassigned to the Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETfund as the chairman.

Apart from being the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation he also serves as a member of several others, including Niger Delta, industries, and land transportation.

His political strength was determined by the fact that he was the only APC senatorial candidate from Kano State who confronted and survived the political tsunami of the NNPP in the last election in the State.

Meanwhile Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, for instance has argued that Muslim aspirants from the North should not be elected as President of the Senate being of the same Islamic faith as the president-elect and vice president-elect, Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima.

The Muslim-Muslim ticket, caused a lot of uproar in the build up to the presidential election and analysts have argued that  the APC should consider it in zoning the National Assembly leadership positions.

In dismissing the argument Jibrin in an interview with journalists recently said calls for religious balancing in the composition of National Assembly leadership, were unnecessary.

He warned that competence should not be sacrificed for sentiment.

He recalled a time the federal parliament had David Mark as Senate president; Ike Ekweremadu as deputy and Patricia Etteh as House Speaker, all Christians.

He said, “They were the most experienced and ranking at that time. Competence was not relegated to sentiment then. Bringing religious sentiment won’t fly.

“It is  about competence, not sentiment. When we talk about experience, I’m the most experienced,” he argued.

Similarly, the Chairman of APC in Kano, Alhaji Abdullahi Abbas, noted that the senator was central to the 513,000 votes APC got in Kano.

Abbas, therefore, implored the party leadership to reward hard-working Jibril with the position of the Senate president, pointing out that he was the most qualified to lead the Senate in the 10th National Assembly.

He noted that due to Jibrin’s influence, no other party had made in-roads in Kano North where he hails from.

The APC Chieftain said, “Significantly, Kano State gave APC tremendous victory in 2015, 2019, and now 2023 elections, with the state producing the highest votes across the federation.

“This is time to reward a hard-working member who had contributed immensely to the growth of our party; by supporting Barau Jibril to lead the 10th Senate”.

Also, a senator representing Jigawa Northwest, Danladi Sankara, has thrown his weight behind Jibrin’s bid for Senate presidency.

He spoke while while addressing the youth wing of the APC from Zamfara State recently.

Sankara said, “Barau Jibrin is a ranking senator; he edges others in experience and sound relationship with his colleagues.

“He is the kind of Senate president the 10th National Assembly needs to consolidate the achievements of the 9th assembly.

“As the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, he was the brain behind the redesigning of Nigeria’s budget circle starting from January.”

Similarly, a pan-African organisation, the Centre for African Progress and Development (CAPD), has urged the APC to zone the Senate presidency to the North West.

The group in a statement by its head of Advocacy and Public Engagement, Mr Chigbo Iwuanorue, said among the array of members of the red chamber jostling to occupy the position of Senate president in the 10th Senate, Barau Jibrin, stands out as the right man for the job.

Iwuanorue said, “Senator Jibrin, who is widely known to be a unifier, has a potent mission to bring to the discussion table the North-South-East-West National Assembly members within the Senate, cater for everybody’s interests, unite the Senate, and drive the agenda of the new administration.

“His commitment to apt progressive leadership will deliver to the 10th assembly a less rancorous, less confusing, and less controversial Senate president.

“He commands so much respect among his people, his peers, and his colleagues at the red chamber and brings tremendous value to his party, the APC, the nation, and his region in the North West.

“He is the only senator with a proven track record of serving remarkably and exceptionally in running the Senate businesses and chairing the appropriation committee that drives the success of the APC government.”

A former Kano senator, El-jibrin Doguwa, at a separate press briefing in Kano State last week, said Jibrin is the most suitable of all the candidates vying for the Senate president.

He said, “First, I have to confess to you that I have known Barau Jibrin over the years and I can guarantee his capacity and tenacity to offer purposeful leadership in the Senate. He commands lots of respect from his colleagues, as a ranking member.”

Jibrin holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting, master’s certificate in Financial Management and pricing, master’s certificate in Management and Masters of Business Administration (MBA).

He also holds a certificate in Financial Management for business decisions from the prestigious Cornell University, United States.

After his initial higher studies, the Senator worked briefly in the accounting department of the Kano State Foundation, before he resigned in 1992 to begin his private flourishing business with vast interests in the manufacturing, insurance and the construction sectors of the Nigerian economy.

His success in the private sector prepared him adequately to begin a process of championing the cause of his people through the instrumentality of politics.

While in the House of Representatives, he served as the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriations, the same position he is currently holding in the Senate.