By Nathaniel Zacchaeus, Abuja
Attention has now been shifted to the principal office positions in the Senate following the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly last week.
Senator Godswill Akpabio has emerged as Senate President while Barau Jibrin was elected as Deputy Senate President.
The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is expected to send the list of the remaining four principal officers’ positions to the red chamber before its resumption from its current break.
The party would appoint the Senate Leader, Deputy Senate Leader, Chief Whip, and Deputy Whip.
The positions would be shared among the North-Central, North-West, South-East, and North-East geopolitical zones.
Only the North-Central, had not been adequately represented in the top positions so far decided at the 10th National Assembly following the successful conclusion of the 2023 general elections.
The distribution of the presiding officers’ positions in the National Assembly was supposed to take care of the other zones apart from the South West and North East which had produced both the president and vice president.
The North-Central was short-changed in the just concluded presiding officers elections because two offices – Deputy Senate President and Speaker, House of Representatives- went to the North-West.
Some senators had said that a ranking senator from the North-Central geopolitical zone should automatically be appointed as the Senate Leader in the spirit of equity, fairness, and justice.
Others, however, insisted that the rule of ranking must be strictly adhered to in the appointment of principal officers.
Other schools of thought who spoke on the development maintained that a ranking senator from the South West geopolitical zone should be appointed as the Senate Leader because President Tinubu is from the zone.
They had claimed that the last two Senate Leaders in the second term of former president Muhammadu Buhari, Senators Yahaya Abdullahi, and Ibrahim Gobir were both from the North West geopolitical zone, the same zone as Buhari.
Many argued against the claims and said there were no historical antecedents to support such an argument.
A senator who spoke on conditions of anonymity countered the argument being advanced that the Senate Leader should be from the President’s geopolitical zone.
He said, “The first Senate Leader during the period of President Olusegun Obasanjo was a senator from Katsina State and another Katsina senator took over from him.
“During the era of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, Senator Teslim Folarin from South-West was Senate Leader and he was there until former President Goodluck Jonathan completed the tenure of Yar’Adua.
“Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba from the South-South took over as Senate Leader when Jonathan was elected president.
“When President Muhammadu Buhari (North West) took over, Senator Ali Ndume from the North East was Senate Leader before he was removed and replaced with Senator Ahmad Lawan, from the same zone
“In 2019, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi from Kebbi North was the Senate Leader before he defected to the Peoples Democratic Party and Senator Ibrahim Gobir took over.”
“There was no history that backed up the claims that the Senate Leader must come from the geopolitical zone of the President.
“It happened by circumstances when Jonathan won his first presidential election in 2011 and when Buhari won his second term in office in 2019.”
He further explained that going by the ranking rule, Senator Abdulfatai Buhari was the most ranking senator in the South-West.
He was in the House of Representatives in 2003 before he got elected as a senator in 2015, 2019, and 2023.
He is being followed closely by Senator Solomon Adeola who was in the House of Representatives in 2011 and moved over to the Senate in 2015 and was re-elected in 2015 and 2023.
In the South-East geopolitical zone, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and Osita Izunaso were the two most ranking senators in the South-East.
Both of them had been to the House of Representatives and the Senate twice.
However, Kalu was in the House of Representatives in 1993, while Izunaso was in the green chamber in 2007.
The only thing is that Kalu’s period in the Lower Chamber lasted just three months before it was truncated by the military junta of the late Gen Sani Abacha.
In the North-Central, Senators Sani Musa (Niger-East) and Saheed Umar (Kwara-North) are the two leading-ranking senators. Both of them had been to the Senate twice, in 2019 and 2023.
The most ranking senator from the North-East geopolitical zone is Ahmad Lawan, who just concluded his tenure as the Senate President, followed by Ali Ndume.
However, Lawan may not accept to be the Senate Leader. It will now be left with Ndume, who played a similar role during the era of Bukola Saraki’s senate presidency.
Ndume, however, had to contend with Senator Danjuma Goje for the exalted position.
Other senators who spoke with our Correspondent on the latest development in the red chamber were of the view that If the leadership of the APC would follow the ranking system one of the above-listed senior senators should emerge as Senate Leader.
They noted that the others would be appointed as deputy Senate Leader, Chief Whip, and Deputy Whip respectively.
