APC, PDP Lawmakers Battle for Senate Leadership Positions Ahead Plenary Resumption
POLITICS DIGEST- Ahead of the Senate’s resumption of sitting tomorrow, feelers from the leaderships of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) indicate that Senators Michael Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti) and Aminu Tambuwal (PDP, Sokoto) are favoured to emerge as majority and minority leaders respectively.
It was, however, gathered that Senator Ali Ndume (APC, Borno) and Senator Adamu Aliero (PDP, Kebbi) have remained interested in the majority and minority leadership positions respectively.
The Red Chamber is billed to resume sitting on Tuesday after which the ruling APC and the minority caucus are expected to fill the vacant eight principal positions.
The ruling APC is expected to produce the majority leader, deputy majority leader, chief whip and deputy chief whip.
The four principal positions reserved for the minority caucus are minority leader, deputy minority leader, minority whip and deputy minority whip.
PDP, being the major opposition party, is expected to produce the minority leader and deputy.
Though nominations for the positions are purely the affairs of political parties with the majority of seats in the Senate, the jostle for them has caused disquiet among senators of both majority and minority parties.
It was indicated that the ruling APC has not finalised the nomination for the positions. Just as it endorsed Godswill Akpabio and Jibrin Barau for the seats of senate president and deputy respectively, the party is also expected to send names of nominees for the four principal positions it is expected to produce.
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Senators Ndume and Bamidele are said to be the major contenders for the majority leader’s seat. They were among the arrowheads of Akpabio’s campaign for the senate presidency. Ndume served as the director general of Akpabio’s campaign, while Bamidele was the deputy.
The promoters of the two contenders have been at loggerheads, advancing different reasons why their candidates should be picked for the position.
A meeting of the APC leadership with Bamidele and Ndume on the matter yielded no result, it was gathered.
It was also gathered that APC senators from the North said the push by some South West lawmakers to produce the majority leader will further polarise the Red Chamber.
One of them, who preferred not to be named, said lawmakers from the North were already feeling marginalised, and that the acrimony the Senate presidency contest caused among the lawmakers was yet to disappear.
Lawmakers from the South, especially South West, cautioned their Northern counterparts against heating up the polity over the principal positions.
Politic Digest gathered from the presidency and APC sources that the odds favour Bamidele who is from the same South as Akpabio.
They said Bamidele was favoured because the majority leader was often picked from the same region as the Senate president.
The source sighted an examples, “In the 8th Senate, when Bukola Saraki (Kwara) was the Senate president, Ali Ndume (Borno) served as majority leader and later Ahmad Lawan (Yobe). Also, in Lawan’s 9th Senate, the majority leader was picked from the North.”
However, a chieftain of APC, Chief Jackson Lekan Ojo, confirmed that the party had not finalised on its preferred aspirants for the positions.
He said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had a major role to play just like he anointed the presiding officers recently before the party’s adoption.
