THE race for the top positions in
the 8th session of the Senate which is expected to be to be inaugurated on
June 4, has recorded a twist with the emergence of former Zamfara State
governor, Ahmed Sani Yerima, as the likely next Senate Majority Leader.
This is the outcome of a meeting of
a caucus of Northwest Senators in Abuja during which the issue of leadership
of the next Senate was thoroughly discussed. With a total of 21 Senators, the
Northwest enjoys an advantage against its only challenger for the position, the
Southwest, which has 18 senators made up of 13 All Progressive Congress (APC)
Senators and five from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
At that meeting, Senators were said
to have argued in favour of having the most ranking among them to become the
Senate Majority leader in strict compliance with Senate ranking rule which
dictated that election of persons into positions of Senate leadership should be
based on the order of ranking. Members of the caucus were also said to have
resolved to reach out to Senators and Senators-elect from other zones for
support.
Yerima was first elected into the
Senate in 2007 and since then had remained a principal officer. In his first term,
he was elected Minority Whip and in 2011, became the Deputy Minority Leader.
The Senate Majority leader plays key
roles in the workings of the Upper Legislative Chamber and the Senate Standing
Rule in its section 28 simply made the Majority Leader the manager of Senate
businesses.
At the moment, the crisis generated
by the struggle for power in the leadership of the next Senate seemed to be
over with a decision by the APC leadership to push the Senate President slot to
the North East and that of the Senate Deputy President to the North Central.
However the caucus of the Southwest in the Senate, which is also seeking to produce the next Senate Leader, has continued it’s quiet lobby among various stakeholders.
However the caucus of the Southwest in the Senate, which is also seeking to produce the next Senate Leader, has continued it’s quiet lobby among various stakeholders.
The failure of the APC to produce
ranking Senator from the Southeast and South-South zones has restricted the
election of persons to position of leadership in the next Senate to only four
zones of Northwest, Northeast, North-Central and Southwest.
The fact that the Southwest had
produced the Vice-President and has been positioned to take the position of the
House of Representatives’ Speaker has been a major threat to its quest to
getting another key position.
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