Musa Saidu, a chieftain of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), says the South-East cannot get the Senate presidency of the 10th National Assembly because it failed to learn from its past mistakes.
Mr Saidu, also the leader of the Arewa Community in Southern Nigeria, said this on Tuesday in Abuja.
“I want to say without fear of contradiction that the South-East has no justification to start asking for the Senate Presidency of the 10th National Assembly because it is not part of those who voted for the APC,” the northern chieftain stated.
He added, “The South-East can’t be in contention for the Senate Presidency because its people didn’t vote for the APC.”
Mr Saidu was reacting to the demand by the South-East Senate caucus asking the APC to zone the position to the South-East for fairness and justice.
“You are talking about fairness and justice when you didn’t even vote for the APC during the 2023 general election. Other zones voted massively for the party and the President-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu, while you decided to give your votes entirely to the Labour Party,” the APC chieftain explained.
He added, “How can you come out to say that the President-elect should zone the Senate presidency to South-East when you didn’t vote for him? Supposing he didn’t win the election, would he be in the position to zone the Senate presidency.”
Mr Saidu said that the South-East had a similar problem with President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 when it demanded the position of the secretary to the government of the federation.
“When you ganged up to defeat the APC even in the stronghold of the president-elect, what were you thinking of? The Senate presidency is not for free. You have to work for it,” the ACF chieftain explained. “You are calling for equity and fairness, but you decided to concentrate your votes for LP. Is there fairness in that?”
He added, “I think that the zoning the Senate presidency to South-South is not entirely a bad idea because the zone performed better in terms of voting for the APC in the last election.”
(NAN)
