Senate Presidency: 35 APC Senators Others Back Yari, Dump Akpabio

As the inauguration of the 10th senate hots up, ENigeria Newspaper reports that northern blocs including ex-generals from the region, 35 APC Senators among other groups have thrown weight behind Abdulaziz Yari for Senate President.

With the national assembly election slated for Saturday, June 10, and the inauguration of the 10th Senate penciled for Tuesday 13th June 2023, the 9th Senate under the leadership of Senator Ahmed Lawan had adjourned its valedictory session to Saturday.

This was announced by Senator Lawan who noted that the meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the villa on Wednesday was sacrosanct. The Senate President said that the shift in the date for the valedictory session was due to a scheduled meeting of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with the lawmakers of the incoming 10th National Assembly today (Tuesday), said, “By the grace of God, we will still hold plenary tomorrow (Thursday) and then our valedictory session will be on Saturday.

However, Vanguard reports that the meeting between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the lawmakers rather left all attendees, including 23 Senators of the All Progressives Congress (APC) more confused than ever. A source revealed that the lawmakers expected the President to seize the opportunity to publicly re-iterate his support for Senator Godswill Akpabio, a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State as his preferred candidate for the seat of Senate President and Tajudeen Abass for Speaker of the House of Representatives, but he failed to do so.

The source further revealed that neither President Tinubu nor the APC National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu whose speeches were both briefs mentioned the names of Akpabio nor Abass in their speeches, even though they were earlier endorsed by the party as candidates for the positions in the 10th National Assembly.

Recall that Senator Akpabio from South-South was endorsed for Senate President, Senator Jubrin Barau from North-west for Deputy Senate President, Honourable Tajudeen Abass, North-west for Speaker, House of Representatives and Hon. Kanu, South-East for Deputy Speaker.

Although this development did not go down well with some members of the party and especially those aspiring for the position of Presiding offices in both the Senate and the House of Representatives as there have been protests, condemnations, and strong criticisms across the country as well.

The APC’s zoning was highly criticized as to why a party would allow two of the six presiding offices in the National Assembly to a zone and leave the North Central without any position, this is even as many others criticized the zoning of Deputy Speaker too.

On what President Tinubu said at the meeting, the source said that he told the lawmakers thus, “Let’s think Nigeria, think about the Nigerian project which is the larger project because it’s by the Grace of God that brought us all together here”.
“We are the majority party and we should not allow our internal bickering to erode our chances. Give whatever is needful as concessions to the opposition and hold on to the principal or presiding offices. We have only one seat for Senate President and one seat for speaker. Only one person can be on each. The elephant is big enough, it now depends on how you slice it. Make consensus amongst yourselves and build national cohesion, national consensus.”

ENigeria Newspaper reports that Tinubu’s speech and body language has plunged most of the lawmakers into a ditch of confusion. For instance, a Vanguard Newspaper source who was present at the meeting said, “This whole thing has become very confusing to most of us honestly. All the noise about Tinubu’s endorsement of Abbas and Akpabio we thought was going to be capped this evening when the president met us for the first time since his swearing-in has proven to be only but a hoax.

“You can imagine that even that of Representatives speaker that we thought is almost settled for Abbass is still cloudy. We had the feeling that the G-6 has been broken, especially after the president met with the group. What stopped him from announcing that to the Reps, even if ours in the Senate looks dicier?

“Mind you, most of us are just following some candidates, they were waiting for the President to say it by himself, but now that he is evasive, it is not clear to us at all”.

CN also understands that some northern groups including ex-generals, 35 Senators, and others in the bloc who are standing strong behind Yari consider the move necessary in order to checkmate Tinubu’s administration to avoid it going out of control.

Details later….