Senate Minority Leadership: Opposition Senators Tackle Atiku over TambuwalSunday Aborisade in Abuja

Senators elected on the platforms of other opposition political parties have kicked against alleged moves by the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to pick a former Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, as the Senate Minority Leader.

The senators, who spoke with THISDAY in Abuja, yesterday, on the conditions of anonymity, alleged that Atiku had submitted Tambuwal’s name alongside other preferred senators in the minority caucus to the PDP for appointment as principal officers of the 10th National Assembly.

The aggrieved senators have therefore vowed to resist Atiku’s alleged moves to impose Tambuwal on them.

They threatened to repeat the way they fought against the imposition of Senator Godswill Akpabio, by the All Progressives Congress and President Bola Tinubu on the Senate.

A substantial number of opposition Senators voted for Senator Abdul-Aziz Yari during the senate presidency contest.

A PDP Senator from Rivers State, another senator from the North Central and a ranking senator from the South West geopolitical zones, made their grievances known in separate comments while speaking with some journalists, strictly under the condition of anonymity.

The federal lawmakers said the sensitivity of the issue would not allow them to disclose their identities now, but threatened to do so later if the situation persists, expressing readiness to vote for any person other than him.

Some of the minority senators, who spoke after their meeting, said they would not allow anyone to use the minority leader position to negotiate for self-preservation and to run for presidential election in 2027.

“You can trace the major political activities of Tambuwal for the past one decade. In 2019, He went against his party, the PDP, and a sitting president to rubbish the PDP zoning arrangements just because it favoured him. He always play  ethnic and religious card when it favours him.

“When he became speaker with the support of opposition elements (that is Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari and other leaders), he used the platform of speakership to effectively rubbish the presidency of Goodluck Johnathan and the PDP.

“He later defected and abandoned the party that made it possible for him to be Speaker and moved the APC and negotiated to be governor. Buhari, Tinubu, but he decided to align with Atiku and came back to PDP with the APC mandate that was given to him with the hope of running for presidency.

“Wike against all odds backed him and promised to deliver the presidential nomination to him but Thank God that did not succeed.  In 2021, he again went for a presidential visit but this time did not get Wike’s support. This is the record of the politician Atiku wants to foist as minority leader on the party.

“Also, his  senatorial election in Sokoto, is now being contested. He was desperate to come to the Senate with the ambition that he would be rewarded with the position of the  senate president.

“When it emerged that the PDP did not get majority and with the defeat of Atiku and Okowa, Atiku and the PDP then changed their plan to make him minority leader to compensate him.

“This explains  why the PDP and other opposition senators are rejecting him, saying he has an antecedent of placing ambition over party, friendship and anything else and that kind of person is not going to have their support,” one of the senators said

It was learnt that Wike and his group are capitalizing on this to mobilise support for a senator from the North  Central, who would be unveiled soon.